


For A Second Or Forever

by JangJaeYul



Series: Feels Like Flying [2]
Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Sports, Amputation, Established Exes, I'm serious about the trauma, Injury Recovery, M/M, Major Character Injury, Medical Trauma, Rollerblades & Rollerskates, Skating, cameo appearances from other idols, ex xiulay, most of exo is in this at some point, this is how, this is the prequel to feels like flying so, you wanna know how minseok loses his leg
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:55:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 44,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27129559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JangJaeYul/pseuds/JangJaeYul
Summary: “I’ll never get sick of that,” Yixing said.“What?” Minseok looked up from pulling his gloves off.“Tiny boy on giant bike.”Before you can leave a legacy, you first have to create it.
Series: Feels Like Flying [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/856700
Comments: 31
Kudos: 27





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the prequel to Feels Like Flying. If you haven't read that yet, I highly recommend you click back to part 1 of this series and do so, as there are a number of plot punchlines in this that are set up in FLF. On the other hand, if you would like to dive in and read the story chronologically, feel free!
> 
> Tags will be updated as each chapter is posted.

**_Five._ **

_\--JD--_

Jongdae didn’t think he’d ever seen this many of his family members in one room.

They’d come pretty close, at the last funeral. That had been a reasonable collection. But this was a conglomeration, a confederation of Kims, all dressed in black, all milling around and talking in low voices, discussing the old man and his life and their experiences with him and all the things that they had in common with each other, precisely none of which Jongdae shared with them beyond a common name.

It wasn’t really their fault, just as it wasn’t his, but he couldn’t help but resent them for it.

“Honey.” His mother appeared at his elbow. “Are you standing here all by yourself?”

“Yes.”

Five years ago she might have tutted at him, but by now she recognised solitude as Jongdae’s default state, if not his natural one.

“You should talk to people,” she suggested.

“Who?” Jongdae said. “I don’t know any of these people.” He used to know them, once upon a time, but that had been _before_ , when he could count his age on his fingers and his father had promised to lend him the extra hands when he got old enough to need them.

“They’re your family, Jongdae. You belong here.”

“Why yes,” Jongdae said. “This is exactly where I belong. Somehow I keep ending up here.”

He tried to keep his tone polite, but he couldn’t quite keep the bitterness out of it.

His mother sighed.

“Darling,” she began, then paused, then tried again. “You have to forgive him one day.”

Jongdae shook his head but did not answer. It was not a matter of forgiving.

“Why don’t you talk to your cousin?” she tried.

Jongdae looked at her. “I don’t have any cousins.”

“Yes you do!” She took him by the elbow. “Your daddy’s cousin has a son about your age!”

“Okay, so I have a _second_ cousin,” Jongdae said.

“Ah, there’s no need for such distinctions,” she chided. “I’m sure you must have met him before - his name is Minseok.”

_Ah, yes._ Kim Minseok. The great success of the family, or great disappointment, depending on who you asked. He was an internationally renowned rollerblader, apparently, with a thoroughly immodest number of tattoos. The last time Jongdae had visited his grandparents they had spoken of Minseok with no small amount of disdain, but his mother seemed to hold him in fairly high regard, even if he did have a very rude word inked above his knee. Jongdae had heard a lot about him, but somehow had never seen him in the flesh.

“I’ll introduce you to him,” she said, pulling him by the elbow. “I see him over there.”

Jongdae followed meekly behind her as she dragged him over to the far side of the room, where a young man was just bowing out of a conversation with Jongdae’s great-uncles.

“Jongdae,” she said, “this is your cousin Minseok.”

The young man looked around at the sound of his name.

“Hello!” He bowed to Jongdae’s mother and smiled at Jongdae. “Hi! Sorry, what was your name?”

“Jongdae,” Jongdae mumbled.

“Oh! I think I’ve heard of you.”

“I’ll leave you two to talk,” Jongdae’s mother whispered, and then she was gone and Jongdae was alone with this smiling, intimidating man.

“So.” Minseok shoved his hands into his pockets. “Remind me how we’re related?”

“Um.” Jongdae glanced down at his shoes. “My dad was your dad’s cousin.”

“Right, right. I guess that makes us second cousins.”

Jongdae nodded.

“How old are you?” Minseok seemed entirely undisturbed by Jongdae’s poor conversational skills.

“Sixteen. … You?”

“Twenty.”

Jongdae nodded again, even as his heart sank a little. Minseok wasn’t really his age at all. He was an adult, with an adult career and adult concerns and probably no interest in talking to his kid cousin-

“What are you into?” Minseok said. “Like, for fun. Do you play any sports?”

Jongdae bit his lip and shook his head. Of course Minseok would only want to know people who were sporty and active like him. “No, I. I play video games.”

“Oh, cool!” Minseok grinned. “I used to play a whole lot of video games with my friend, but I’m not very good. I think I beat him maybe once, out of sheer dumb luck.”

Jongdae twisted his hands together and gave him a little smile. Minseok was doing a remarkable job of pretending to be interested; Jongdae almost believed that he gave a damn.

“You ever play basketball?” Minseok continued.

Jongdae shook his head. “I played once in gym class. I was really bad.”

Minseok laughed. “Fair enough. I don’t play much anymore. I skate, mostly.”

“Yeah, I heard.”

“Oh, did you?” Minseok raised one amused eyebrow. “I can’t tell if that’s good or bad.”

Jongdae’s cheeks burned at the wicked grin playing in the corner of Minseok’s mouth.

“I don’t know what my grandmother might have told you,” Minseok said, “but I assure you it’s all completely true.”

_Really?_ Jongdae’s mind boggled.

“Do you really have the F word tattooed on your thigh?” he blurted out.

Minseok laughed. “No, of course not.”

Jongdae breathed a sigh of relief.

“It’s on my calf.”

He winked as Jongdae gave a cough of surprised laughter.

“ _Really?_ ”

“Yep!” Minseok tapped his right leg. “I’d show you, but I feel like that would be sacrilegious or something.”

“I think that would probably be considered disrespectful to the dead,” Jongdae agreed.

“Another time. When we’re not in mourning or surrounded by crusty old people.”

Minseok grinned at him, and Jongdae, to his own surprise, grinned back.

_\--YX--_

“So how was your grandfather’s funeral?”

“Great-grandfather,” Minseok corrected. “It was alright. Not as sad as I expected? But then, he was ninety-seven. He had a good life.”

Yixing hummed in agreement. “Can you pass me the drill?”

Minseok reached across the toolbox to grab it, then held the boards together while Yixing drilled the screw into place.

“You’re gonna be the guinea pig to test these,” Minseok said. “If I break my leg this close to the Northeasterns, I’m fucked.”

“Do you really think they’re gonna fall apart?” Yixing sat back and scrutinised the ramp. “They look pretty solid. And they weren’t cheap.”

“I’m not so concerned about the ramp as I am about your ability to put it together properly.”

“Shut up.” Yixing threw a screw at him.

“Oi, oi, don’t lose that!” Minseok fumbled the screw into his cupped hands. “They only gave us two spares.” He held out his hand for the drill and set the screw into the other side of the ramp.

They continued building the ramp in silence, and Yixing’s mind had just started to wander to the possible configuration of equipment inside when Minseok spoke again.

“So it turns out I have a second cousin.”

“Oh?” Yixing glanced up from fitting the next set of boards together.

“Jongdae.” Minseok pronounced the name thoughtfully. “I’ve heard my mom mention him before, but I wasn’t sure how we were related.”

“Is he our age?”

“Not quite. He’s sixteen.”

“Ah,” Yixing tilted his head back and sighed. “What I wouldn’t give to be sixteen again.”

Minseok blew a loud raspberry at him, and Yixing laughed.

“So your… parents are cousins?”

“His dad is my dad’s cousin,” Minseok said. “Or. Was.”

“Oh.”

“You understand why we… don’t talk much about him.”

“ _Oh_.” Yixing grimaced. “That’s unfortunate.”

“Very.” Minseok drilled a screw into place and gave the ramp an experimental push. It stayed solidly in one piece.

“Looking good.” Yixing gave him a thumbs-up. “Do you wanna test it?”

“Do _you_ wanna test it?”

Yixing snorted. “You did more work on this one than I did.”

“Yeah, and I trust myself even less than I trust you!”

Yixing laughed. “Yeah, okay. Lemme grab my skates.”

“I’m just gonna watch from waaay over here,” Minseok said, walking towards the open doors of the warehouse.

“Wait, Minnie, don’t-!”

Minseok gave a little squeak and jumped backwards, but it was too late.

“I _told_ you it wasn’t set yet!”

“Aw _man_.” Minseok lifted his foot to look at the sole. “I just bought these shoes! Where’s the fucking tap? I gotta get this shit off before it sets.”

As Minseok jogged away around the side of the building, Yixing sighed down at the soft concrete, now sporting a size seven footprint.

“Idiot,” he muttered. There was no way to smooth it over now. The footprint would have to stay.

Minseok came back five minutes later carrying his wet shoe.

“I think I got it all off,” he said. “Why the fuck do we not have a barrier or something up there?”

“Because it’s literally just you and me,” Yixing said, “and you would _think_ we’d both be smart enough to remember where the wet concrete is.”

“Hey.” Minseok pointed a finger at Yixing’s face. “My IQ is zero and you know it.” He dropped his shoes and sat down on the ground, pulling his knees up to his chest and gesturing at the ramp. “Go on!”

Yixing dragged his skates out of his bag and pulled them on, then skated to the far end of the forecourt and turned around to eye the ramp. He was about ninety-eight percent sure they’d put it together solidly; besides, it was only a low ramp - even smashing straight through it couldn’t hurt him _too_ badly. Yixing said a silent prayer before taking one last step back and kicking off.

“Do a barrel roll!” Minseok yelled as Yixing approached the ramp.

Yixing thought about giving him the finger, but decided his hand was better occupied in an Indi Grab.

Minseok cheered as Yixing touched down.

“Can ya boi build a ramp or _what?_ ”

“My boy can build a ramp,” Yixing agreed.

Minseok grinned up at him, brightly mischievous, and flicked his tongue over his lip ring so it rattled against his teeth.

“You wanna open up the next kit? I’m excited to build the quarter-pipe.”

“Sure thing.” Yixing turned to drag the next set of boards off the back of the truck. “But _you’re_ testing this one.”

_\--JD--_

Jongdae scrambled up off the couch when the doorbell rang.

“I’ve got it!” he called, sprinting through the sitting room and sliding down the hallway on his socks to wrench the door open before his mother could decide to answer it.

“Hello!” he gasped, then stopped.

“Yo.” Minseok gave him a little salute, shaking his hair out of his eyes as he tucked a _freaking motorcycle helmet_ under his arm.

“ _Woah_ ,” Jongdae breathed. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the giant motorbike sitting in the driveway behind Minseok, sleek and red and polished and-

“You like her?”

“You ride a _motorbike?_ ”

“Yeah, dude.” Minseok turned around to look at the bike. “Easiest way of getting from A to B. I bought her when I won my first competition.”

“That is…” _the coolest freaking thing I’ve ever seen_.

“I can take you for a ride on her later, if your mom agrees.”

Jongdae swallowed hard, then shook his head. “No, I- that’s okay.”

Minseok grinned. “Too scary?”

“It seems kinda… dangerous.”

Minseok shrugged as he followed Jongdae into the house and took his shoes off. “Ehh. Not unless you ride like an idiot. If you’re sensible you’ll be fine.” They went through into the kitchen, where Jongdae’s mother was cooking.

“Mom, Minseok’s here.”

“Oh?” she turned around. “Oh! Hi, Minseok.”

“Hello, Aunty. It’s good to see you again.” Minseok greeted her warmly.

“Have you eaten yet?”

Minseok shook his head. “Not yet. I just came from the rink.”

“You should have something to eat. Jongdae, will you get some snacks for your cousin?”

Jongdae pulled open the cupboard and grabbed a bag of chips, then yanked two cans of soda from the fridge. “Okay, we’re going upstairs to play video games in my room. Don’t bother us, okay?”

“You think I have time to come pester you? Go have fun.”

Jongdae led Minseok up the narrow staircase and down the hallway to his room.

“Your house is really nice,” Minseok said.

“It’s really small,” Jongdae said. “But it’s just me and Mom, so. It’s okay.”

“No siblings?”

Jongdae shook his head. “Nope. I would have liked a little brother, but. That ship kinda sailed.”

Minseok made a soft noise; Jongdae didn’t bother to examine it to see whether it was agreement or pity. 

“So, this is my room.”

Minseok stood in the doorway for a moment. Jongdae looked around, every flaw in his life suddenly glaringly obvious through Minseok’s eyes. He’d tidied up more thoroughly than usual last night, but there were still things he’d forgotten to hide. His schoolbooks were sitting on the desk, and now Minseok was surely judging him for being a high schooler; his sweater from this morning was still sitting on the bed, unfolded; why had he not taken down his Minecraft posters?

“This is like. The coolest room in your house.”

Jongdae glanced sideways at Minseok. Was that supposed to be an insult? Minseok was smiling. It seemed like a compliment. But _how?_

“So, uh. You wanna… play a game?”

“Sure. Is it okay if I sit?”

“Oh, oh, sure. Sorry.” Jongdae gestured to the desk chair. “Or you can sit on the bed, whatever you want. Sorry, I know it’s really cramped.”

“Nah, dude, my room at my parents’ house is smaller than this. This is chill.” Minseok sat down on the bed and folded his legs in front of him. “What are we playing?”

-

It only took a couple of rounds for Jongdae to confirm: Minseok was _not_ very good at video games.

“Just shoot! _Shoot!_ ”

“I’m _trying!_ ”

“Ahh, you _suck!_ ”

It was only as Minseok laughed that Jongdae’s brain caught up with his mouth and he realised he was shouting insults at his cousin, who was older and accomplished and deserving of _respect_ -

Before the mortification could even hit Jongdae’s cheeks Minseok was lifting a foot and poking him in the ribs with it, trying to tickle him, or maybe knock him off his seat, and Jongdae was squealing and squirming away, and Minseok was grinning and wrestling with his controller and still taking hits as Jongdae’s character sprinted erratically away from the enemy.

“Ah, shit.” Minseok dropped his controller and flopped back on the bed with a huff of laughter as the defeat animation crawled across the screen. “This is really not my calling. Sorry dude, I’m dragging your win rate down.”

“Yeah,” Jongdae agreed, setting his controller on the desk and cracking open his soda. “No offense, but I think I’ll stick to playing with Suho in future.”

“Who’s Suho?” Minseok sat up and grabbed the other can, turning it over in his hands to scrutinise the ingredients list.

“Just a friend from the internet. We do missions together. He’s really good.”

“That’ll be a nice change, after playing with me.”

“You’re not _that_ bad.”

“I totally am. So Suho and you are good friends?”

Jongdae shrugged. “Not really. I mean. We play a lot, but we don’t really know anything about each other? I’ve never seen his face. I don’t know his real name. We voice chat, but we don’t really talk about much besides gaming.”

“Just mission buddies, then.”

“Yeah.”

“There’s definitely worse reasons to be friends than that.” Minseok squinted at the can. “I’m pretty sure this won’t kill me,” he muttered, opening it and taking a swig. “Hey, if you want to see something I _am_ good at, you should watch me skate.”

“Oh. Yeah, I- I heard you skate. A lot.”

“Understatement,” Minseok smirked. “There has been precisely one day in the last three months that I wasn’t either skating or working on my rink.”

The day of Great-Grandfather’s funeral, Jongdae guessed. “You have a rink?”

“Yeah, yeah!” Minseok sat forward. “Okay so, tell me if this is fucking crazy, but you know the old warehouses out near the industrial edge? I dunno if you’ve been down that way much, it’s pretty far from here, but there was one of the warehouses that had been sitting empty for fucking years, and they couldn’t rent it cause it was real shitty and basically falling apart, and they couldn’t be fucked fixing it, so they put it up for sale, and Xingy and I were like ‘why the fuck not?’ and I bought it.”

“Woah, _what?_ You _bought a warehouse?_ ”

“Hell yeah!” Minseok beamed. “I had a whole bunch of money from competitions last year, and I’m like, we’ve been skating at the outdoor park on the other side of town, which is super exposed and really weather dependent, and also sometimes there’s gangs that hang out there, and they leave needles and condoms and stuff - it’s not great. And we were like, what if there was a place where everyone could come skate, and what if it was indoors so that we could still use it in the winter, where it’s safe and everyone knows they’re welcome? So when we saw they were selling one of the warehouses we were like ‘shit, this is _perfect_ ,’ and so I bought it, and we got it rezoned, and now we’re working on turning it into a skating rink!”

Jongdae made an effort to pick up his jaw. “ _Wow_. That’s amazing!”

“It’ll be really cool when it’s finished,” Minseok said. “We basically had to completely gut the building, rip it down to bones and redo it from the ground up, but it’s almost there. We’ve got the floor all done, and that’s the important part, right? So now we’re working on getting some seating in there and building ourselves some ramps and shit. And there’s a little office in the corner that we’re gonna cut open and turn into a counter where people can get snacks and stuff. It’s gonna be _so cool_.”

“That _is_ really cool,” Jongdae agreed. “It must have been a lot of work though, right?”

“Oh, hell yeah. Every available minute. I gotta tear myself away to practise, otherwise I’d be there 24/7. Sometimes we end up working so late that we just sleep there, in the storage room. Two out of ten, do not recommend, that room is cold as _shit_ , even with the whole building reinsulated.”

As Minseok paused to take a gulp of his soda, Jongdae found himself reevaluating everything he’d ever heard about him. His grandmother had described a lazy, rebellious punk with a habit of careless overindulgence and no respect for authority, but Jongdae didn’t see that boy in his room. Minseok was warm and effusive, dedicated, hard-working, with the kind of drive and motivation that Jongdae desperately wished he could cultivate in himself.

“I can’t wait until it’s done,” Minseok said. “I hope people actually come and skate there, I know it’s right on the industrial edge, but hopefully if the rink itself is good enough they’ll want to come. We’ve got this kind of crazy dream that maybe one day there’ll actually be a real skating _community_ here, a place where we can all go and enjoy together instead of being scattered around the city. And no-one’ll have to pay - we did a budget and everything, I make enough in the competitions to keep it running, so we don’t need to charge people money to skate there.”

Add _generous_ to that list, Jongdae thought. “It’s gonna be great,” he said. “I just know it. Your rink is gonna be the heart of the community.”

“The heart of the community.” Minseok smiled. “I like that.”

_\--YX--_

Yixing looked up at the roar of a motorbike rounding the corner. He waved as Minseok pulled into the parking lot and waited while he cut the engine and slid down from the seat.

“I’ll never get sick of that,” Yixing said.

“What?” Minseok looked up from pulling his gloves off.

“Tiny boy on giant bike.”

“Shut the fuck your mouth.” Minseok thwacked a glove against Yixing’s arm. Yixing laughed and reached out to try and ruffle Minseok’s hair, but found himself evaded with a practised dodged.

“What have you done so far?”

Yixing gestured to the bars and stands by the warehouse door. “Just been fitting the rails together. I reckon we should be able to start bolting stuff into place today.”

“Ahhh, yes!” Minseok gave a little hop of excitement. “Man, let’s fucking do this, I’m so pumped to test it all out.”

They finished bolting the rails together and began dragging all the equipment into the warehouse. The new floor was smooth and even, a far cry from the rough, cracked concrete that had been there before. They’d done a good job, Yixing thought. If nothing else, they could be proud of that.

By the time they finished pulling the ramps and rails inside and securing them in place, it was late into the evening. Yixing lifted the hem of his shirt to wipe the sweat off his face as he leaned back against the counter in the new front wall of the office to look at the completed rink.

“Well, Minnie,” he said, “I think we’ve done well.”

“Yeah,” Minseok agreed, running a hand along the shiny bar atop the barrier. “Yeah, I’m happy.”

Yixing slid his phone out of his pocket and quietly opened the camera. Without saying a word, he lifted the phone and took a photo: Minseok standing there in front of the barrier, his back to the camera, looking out over the brand-new rink. Not a single skid mark marred the fresh concrete; the rails were polished and gleaming, not yet dulled by the grind of a thousand wheels; the ramps were smooth wood, clean and unscarred.

All of this would change, Yixing knew. The concrete would become dulled, the bars scraped and scratched, the ramps pitted with chips. The rink would become well-used, loved and lived-in, and this shine of fresh promise would be a memory. Only the two of them - Yixing behind the camera and Minseok in front - would remain.

“I’m gonna give it a go,” Minseok said.

“Huh?” Yixing shoved his phone back in his pocket before Minseok could turn around.

“Where’s my gear? I wanna skate. You gonna join me?”

Yixing shook his head. “Nah, man, I’m exhausted. You go.”

Minseok strapped his gear on and climbed over the barrier.

“You know there’s a gate, right?”

“Of course I know there’s a gate, Xingy, I _installed_ the gate.”

“Then why aren’t you using it?”

“Because _this is more fun,_ okay?”

Yixing rolled his eyes as Minseok dropped to the ground on the other side of the barrier. He took a second to test the feel of the concrete, rolling his foot back and forth a few times before turning to grin at Yixing over his shoulder.

“This floor is beautiful.”

“I would hope so, considering how much it cost.”

“ _Totally_ worth it,” Minseok confirmed. He took off around the edge of the rink, just building up speed for a lap until he passed by Yixing again, then veered to the left and jumped up to grind along the first rail.

Minseok tested every single piece of equipment, one by one, until he was confident that each was perfectly placed and working well. There was something about watching Minseok skate, Yixing thought. Something about watching Minseok do anything, really. The moment he entered the rink, he became almost a different kind of being. What was cockiness outside the rink became quiet confidence within it. He moved with the deftness and surety that could only come from a life lived on a half-pipe, knowing that this was his place and he could move within it as he saw fit. Watching Minseok skate was an exercise in admiration.

Yixing did not tear his eyes away until Minseok hauled himself back over the barrier and flopped down beside him on the bench.

“It’s good,” he panted. “Good placing. Works well. Maybe shift that launch ramp like a foot to the right.”

“Noted.” Yixing glanced at Minseok, his heaving chest, temples glistening with sweat. “You tired?”

Minseok nodded. “What fuckin time is it?”

Yixing slid his phone out of his pocket again. “Mm- oh, shit, it’s one.”

“ _One in the morning?_ ” Minseok groaned. “Man, I swear it was like nine p.m. two seconds ago. My mom’s gonna flip shit.”

“What, you still have a curfew?”

“No, fuck off. She’s just a really light sleeper, and if I wake her up when I get home she’s gonna be _pissed_.” He sighed. “I need my own place.”

“Really?” Yixing raised an eyebrow. “You wanna move out?”

Minseok wrinkled his nose. “I dunno if this makes me a bad son, but I do _not_ want to live with my parents forever. I wanna have my own space, throw parties and shit, not have to worry about closing the fucking door too loud when I get home after midnight. I’ll take care of my parents, sure, but like… not from within the same house.”

“That’s fair,” Yixing nodded.

“Yeah. So anyway. Can I sleep at yours?”

“Dude, I’m too tired to drive,” Yixing said. “Let’s just crash here.”

“Ugh, fine.” Minseok tugged his skates off, then dragged himself upright and shuffled off towards the office in his socks. “I call dibs on the red sleeping bag.”

“Hey, that one’s mine!” Yixing scrambled up to follow him.

“Too late, already called dibs.”

They ended up zipping the sleeping bags together and sharing them, the fabric pulled up around their ears as they huddled together in the middle for some semblance of warmth. Even in summer, this storage room always managed to become freezing cold the second the sun went down. Yixing snuggled Minseok in closer and pulled his sweater down over his hands to try and defrost his numb fingers. Minseok made a sleepy noise and rubbed his face against Yixing’s neck, then shivered and wiggled his arms in between their bodies to steal the warmth from Yixing’s chest. Yixing soothed one sweater paw up and down Minseok’s back until he felt the breath on his collarbone become slow and even, and only then did he bury his face in Minseok’s hair and let that gentle breath lull him to sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

_\--JD--_

_From: Kim Minseok_ _  
_ _Yo. Beach trip. U in?_

Jongdae stared at his phone, an inexplicable bubble of apprehension in his throat. Such a short text - five words, with so much meaning. 

_Yo_. So casual. So friendly. Was this how he and Minseok should address each other now? Not as second cousins, but as… friends? 

Then, _beach trip_ \- not just casually going to the beach, but a beach _trip_.

And then, finally, _u in?_

Jongdae swallowed. _U in_ implied the trip was happening whether he was in or not, and that meant, given how little Minseok liked being alone, that there were _other people_ involved. Friends of Minseok’s. People Jongdae didn’t know. Cool people, probably, people who skated, and partied, and did things that Jongdae couldn’t even imagine.

Jongdae took a deep breath, and then, because he didn’t want to highlight how much of a child he was by saying, _let me ask my mom_ , sent back one word.

_To: Kim Minseok_ _  
_ _Okay!_

He put his phone down next to his math textbook and blew out a calming breath between pursed lips. What was he getting himself into?

-

When Minseok picked him up the following Saturday morning, Jongdae was relieved to see that the car was not crammed to overflowing with rowdy skater boys. In fact, there was only one other person besides Minseok, and he looked about as far from rowdy as Jongdae could imagine.

“Hey!” Minseok leaned out the window and gestured towards the back door. “You alright in the back seat, or do you want to sit up front?”

Jongdae shook his head. “The back seat is great.” He climbed in behind Minseok and set his bag carefully between his feet.

“Chuck your stuff over in the back if you want, there’s space back there. This is Yixing, by the way.”

“Oh!” Jongdae should have expected that - the way Minseok spoke of Yixing, they seemed like a package deal.

“Nice to meet you,” Yixing turned around in the driver’s seat to reach back and shake Jongdae’s hand. “I’m Zhang Yixing.”

“Kim Jongdae.”

“Alright, let’s hit the road!” Minseok leaned back and put his feet up on the dashboard in front of him as Yixing backed out of the driveway.

“Get your dirty shoes off there,” Yixing said. “You’re destroying my car.”

“I hate to break it to you, Xingy Dingy, but your car is already pretty much destroyed,” Minseok said as he toed his shoes off and put his socked feet back on the dashboard.

“Hey, don’t be rude.”

“I speak only the truth. You need a new car.”

Yixing sighed. “Yeah, I kind of do. Where the hell would I get the money for it, though?”

Minseok frowned. “What’s your job paying you?”

“Enough for rent and bills and not much more.”

Minseok snorted. “Typical. Ask for a raise.”

“I’m not gonna ask for a raise, dude. That’s a you thing.”

“True.” Minseok tilted his head back to look at the ceiling. “Hmm. I’m sure we can figure it out if we put our minds to it.”

Yixing cut a glance towards him. “You are _not_ buying me a car.”

“Of course not,” Minseok said. “I just put all my money into building a skating rink, you think I’ve got a casual thirty grand to throw at a car?”

“Thirty grand,” Yixing snorted. “Only you would think about buying a car and come up with a hypothetical price tag of _thirty grand_.” He glanced in the rearview mirror to catch Jongdae’s eye. “Rich people, am I right?”

Jongdae had a momentary flare of panic at the fact that Yixing was talking to _him_ , but somehow through the bubble in his throat he managed a smile and a suitably jokey, “Right.”

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up,” Minseok grumbled as Yixing snickered to himself. “I’ve got new money, let me enjoy it, okay? I’ve never been rich before.”

“I know, I know you haven’t,” Yixing chuckled, mollifying. “But you sure have taken to it like a duck to water.”

Minseok snorted. “Are you saying you wouldn’t?”

“I dunno, man,” Yixing shrugged. “I don’t think I’d know what to do with all that money.”

“Buy a skating rink, duh.”

Yixing laughed, taking one hand off the wheel to cover his mouth. “You’re so right.”

The drive to the beach took about an hour, during which Minseok tried to coax the car’s ancient stereo into playing a cassette tape from the glove box before finally giving up and tuning the radio to a 90s pop channel.

“This is the kind of music you listen to?”

“Hm?” Minseok, hands clasped behind his head, looked back at Jongdae through the window of his arm. “I’ll listen to anything, dude. I’m not picky.”

The more Jongdae learned about Minseok, the more he found himself amazed.

“What about you?” Yixing asked. “What kind of music are you into?”

Jongdae blushed, suddenly finding his shoes to be absolutely fascinating. “Um. Mostly… classical?”

He cringed, but for some reason Yixing and Minseok weren’t bursting into laughter.

“Nice,” Yixing nodded.

“Okay, but classical music is fucking legit,” Minseok expanded, turning in his seat to look at Jongdae. “Like, I know I’m preaching to the choir here, but there’s something about that one Mozart piece that just _gets me_ , you know? I can’t remember which one it is-”

“His 40th?” Jongdae suggested. It was always the 40th.

“Yeah, the sad one that’s all violins and shit. Don’t listen to it alone at night, first time I heard it was like ten o’clock at night in my bedroom and I swear to god I have never been so scared of my own mortality.”

“Have you listened to his Requiem?”

“ _Yes_.” Minseok smacked a hand against the shoulder of his seat. “Only part of it, but man, that shit gave me like, _supernatural_ chills.”

Jongdae put a hand to his mouth to try and hold back a grin.

“I mean, I dunno if I’d listen to more than about twenty minutes at a time,” Minseok shrugged, “but classical music is good, man.”

“I could listen for hours,” Jongdae admitted. “I’ve got this one CD that just _lives_ in my stereo, I turn it on as soon as I get home from school.”

“That’s cool, dude.” Minseok, incredibly, did not seem to be mocking him. “It must be good to study to.”

“Yeah.”

“You study hard, right?” Yixing glanced back in the rearview mirror.

“Uh-”

“Yep!” Minseok cut in before Jongdae could reply. “Jongdae’s a nerd.”

Jongdae felt his face flushing.

“Hey,” Yixing admonished. “Be nice.”

“I am!” Minseok stared at Yixing, wide-eyed. “It’s a compliment! If I were more of a nerd, maybe I could have gone to college!”

“You never _wanted_ to go to college,” Yixing squinted at him. “I don’t think you even for a fraction of a microsecond _actually considered_ going to college.”

“No, but if I’d been a nerd then I might’ve!”

Jongdae laughed as Yixing rolled his eyes and pretended to smack Minseok upside the head.

“I _am_ a nerd,” he said. “I spend all my time studying or playing video games. I only have one friend, and I only ever talk to him about video games. I listen to _classical music_. I think it’s safe to say I’m a nerd.”

“That’s the spirit!” Minseok said. “You gotta embrace that shit.”

“Like you embrace being a dirty punk?” Yixing muttered.

“Oi!” Minseok flicked a finger in the direction of Yixing’s ear. “I’m a very _clean_ punk, thank you very much.”

“Are you at college?” Jongdae asked Yixing.

Yixing checked over his shoulder and changed lanes before replying.

“Nope. Couldn’t afford it.”

“Oh.” Jongdae nodded. “Yeah, I dunno how we’re gonna pay for me to go to college either.”

“It’s just you and your mom, right?”

“Yeah.” Jongdae didn’t ask how Yixing knew; he assumed Minseok had told him. That was definitely a better option than him having found out some other way.

Yixing slowed down to take the turnoff towards the beach. “You two must be close. She’s all you’ve got, huh?”

Jongdae shrugged. “I guess so.”

“I know that feeling,” Yixing murmured, glancing out the window on Minseok’s side to check for traffic as he turned.

They pulled into the parking lot and climbed out to stretch in the sunlight. Minseok had traded his socks for flip flops, and he wriggled his toes as they stood on the asphalt.

“I am so beyond keen to get in that water.”

It did look inviting, Jongdae thought, the glittering sea with its gently breaking waves. Minseok skipped away down the grassy hill towards the sand, and Jongdae scuttered after him, backpack clutched in his hands.

“Is this a good spot, Xingy?” Minseok called back, his foot resting atop one of the large logs that dotted the beach.

“Looks good!” Yixing yelled. He had caught up to Jongdae, whose trainers were already full of sand. “How you doing there?”

“Good.” Jongdae gave one foot a shake, but it was a lost cause - the sand just streamed back in as soon as he put it down. “I should have worn sandals.”

“Just take them off,” Yixing suggested. “It’s not like your feet could get _more_ sandy.”

“True.”

When they reached Minseok, Jongdae sat down and yanked his shoes and socks off. His feet sighed in relief at the cool touch of sea air, then screamed as he stuck them into the sand.

“Ow ow ow-” he yanked his knees up to his chest.

“Yeah, it’s hot,” Minseok said. He was perched on the log beside Jongdae, rubbing sunscreen into his legs. “Gotta get in the water to avoid those third degree burns.”

“Mhm.”

Jongdae found himself staring at Minseok’s legs. This was the first time he’d seen him in shorts, with all his tattoos on display. There was a pinup girl on his thigh, hand raised in victory, bracketed by the words BAD ASS in vertical print. His shin bore a cat which, upon closer inspection, seemed to be dressed as a pirate. And there, on the back of his calf, in wonky, sloping letters, the infamous tattoo: _GET FUCKED_.

“Why-” Jongdae snapped his mouth shut.

“Huh?” Minseok looked up from sunscreening his knee. “What’s up?” He followed Jongdae’s gaze and grinned. “Oh, yeah. Ask away, dude.”

“Why do you have… ‘get-’ uh, ‘get-’” he couldn’t bring himself to say it.

“‘Get fucked’?” Minseok guessed. “Because I was sixteen, and I was a fucking idiot. I had a mate whose big brother did tats out of his bedroom for twenty bucks, and I was like ‘that’s the punkest shit ever, I should fuckin’ get one.’ It was the _least_ punk thing I’ve ever done.”

“Was it really?” Yixing interjected from the other side of the log. “Cause I remember a _distinctly less punk_ Minseok crying at the bus stop-”

“Okay, shut up, you would cry too if you’d just broken your arm in six places-”

“It was only four places, don’t be dramatic.”

“Yeah well you cry all the time, so-”

“Yep, and I’m not pretending to be the punkest kid this side of the industrial edge.”

“ _Emotions are punk, Yixing._ So anyway,” Minseok turned back to Jongdae, “I thought I was super edgy, so I let him give me this shit, and it was a Bad Idea. Like, instant regret. I’m lucky I didn’t get hepatitis or HIV or something. Don’t get scratcher tats, kids.”

“I don’t plan on it,” Jongdae said. He couldn’t imagine ever wanting a tattoo, let alone one done in some stranger’s bedroom.

“I’ll get it covered up one day,” Minseok said. “I just gotta think of something that’ll properly hide it.” He finished rubbing sunscreen into his legs and pulled his T-shirt off to begin applying it to his chest. “Hey, Xing, do you think I’ll be alright swimming?”

“Hm?” Yixing turned around. “Oh, yeah, you should be. Lemme see.” He brushed the sand off his fingers and reached out to touch Minseok’s back. “Yeah, it feels decently healed. You’ll be fine. Do you want me to-”

“Yeah, please.” Minseok passed the bottle of sunscreen to Yixing, and as he turned to give him better access to his back Jongdae saw what they were talking about: spanning the width of Minseok’s shoulder blades was a pair of giant butterfly wings.

“ _Woah_.” Jongdae’s whisper was lost in the hiss of the waves as he stared at the delicate film of Minseok’s wings, rippling and shimmering as Yixing massaged sunscreen into them. He hadn’t known tattoos could look like that, sitting translucent above the skin, an ornament rather than a mask.

“These came out really well,” Yixing murmured. “Whoever the artist was, keep them.”

“Yeah, it’s this dude out on the other side of the industrial edge,” Minseok said. “He’s just opened up his shop, it’s him and a mate. I think the other guy’s a piercer, I’m not a hundred percent sure. They do good stuff though.”

“Hell yeah.” Yixing squirted some sunscreen into his palm and handed the bottle to Jongdae. “I’m almost tempted to get one myself.”

“ _Uh_.” Minseok shot him an alarmed look. “You would _literally die_.”

“I said _almost_. I’m not an idiot.”

“Aren’t you?”

“Shut the hell up, Minnie.”

“Why can’t you get a tattoo?” Jongdae wondered.

“Hemophiliac,” Minseok supplied.

“Oh.”

Jongdae’s face must have done something without his permission, because Yixing snorted.

“Don’t look so horrified. It’s not _that_ bad. I’m not made of glass. I just try to avoid bleeding if at all possible. Unlike _this moron_ , who throws himself off half-pipes every chance he gets.”

“That was _one time, Jesus Christ_.”

Yixing jumped off the log to evade the smack Minseok aimed at him, dancing away across the hot sand with a laugh.

“Come on! I thought you wanted to go for a swim!”

Minseok launched himself off the log and tore after Yixing, who gave a shriek and sprinted away towards the water. Jongdae shoved the sunscreen down the side of Minseok’s bag, took off his glasses and tucked them away in their case in his backpack, and, after a moment of indecision, shoved both their bags down so they were half-wedged under the log, then draped Minseok’s shirt over them to hide them. That done, he trotted after Yixing and Minseok, who were already in the water and apparently trying to drown each other.

By the time Jongdae had waded out to where the other two were wrestling, Yixing had gained the upper hand and was dunking Minseok repeatedly under the water. Minseok was choking and laughing, shoving at Yixing’s face to try and push him off as he coughed the salt out of his nose.

“I give up, I give up! Let me g-” he spluttered as Yixing dunked him one last time before letting go and splashing away out of reach. Minseok gasped and spat, hacking the ocean water out of his lungs. “ _Ugh._ You’re the worst friend ever.”

“You started it,” Yixing pointed out. “It was self defense.” He turned and swam away before Minseok could grab him, striking out for the floating platform in the middle of the bay.

“Is this what real-life friendships are supposed to look like?” Jongdae wondered. He tried to imagine drowning Suho in the ocean; his brain refused to even supply an image of what that might look like.

“Probably not,” Minseok said. “Yixing and I have a very interesting relationship.”

“You don’t say.”

“I’m lucky to still have him, after everything.” Minseok sighed, watching Yixing climb onto the platform and greet the other swimmers there.

“What do you mean?”

Minseok glanced at Jongdae out the corner of his eye. “Well, you know. We’ve had our ups and downs. He did _not_ get along with my last boyfriend.”

“Your-” Jongdae took a second to process that, and then another to reframe his perception of Minseok. “You’re gay?”

“Uh. Yeah.” Minseok was looking at him now, his gaze just a fraction harder. “Do you have a problem with that?”

“No,” Jongdae shook his head. “No. Definitely not.”

“Good.” Minseok looked back out at the floating platform, where Jongdae could just discern the fuzzy shape of Yixing kicking his feet in the water.

“I’ve just never met anyone who was gay before.”

“You definitely have,” Minseok said. “They just haven’t told you.”

“… Oh.” That boggled the mind a bit.

“Don’t think about it too hard.” Minseok patted him on the shoulder. “You think you can swim all the way out there?”

Jongdae eyed the distance to the platform and nodded. “Race you?”

“You’re challenging a professional athlete to a race?”

“ _Three-two-one-go!_ ”

There was a cry of indignation from behind him as he dove forward and splashed away through the waves. Jongdae reigned in his grin until he reached the platform and took Yixing’s offered hand to pull himself up onto the boards.

“You’re a dirty cheater,” Minseok gasped, bobbing in the water behind him.

“I needed a head start,” Jongdae said.

“ _Cheater_ ,” Minseok repeated.

“It’s the only way to win against you,” Yixing pointed out. He reached down and dragged Minseok up onto the platform, where he settled in between the two of them and flicked the water off his hands towards Jongdae’s face.

“Refreshing,” Jongdae grinned.

“I’m surrounded by snakes,” Minseok said. “Neither of you love me.”

“Hiss hiss,” Yixing muttered, flipping his toes up out of the water and watching the sun catch the droplets.

Jongdae stifled a giggle behind his hand, which quickly turned into a yelp as Minseok shoved him off the platform and into the water.

_\--YX--_

Yixing’s phone chimed from the shelf above the counter. He picked it up and unlocked it, then saw it was a message from Minseok and promptly smacked his coffee down on the counter so hard he almost cracked the cup in his haste to open it.

There were no words, just a picture. A selfie, taken at the most unflattering angle possible, of Minseok. He was flashing a V at the camera, and between his teeth was a gold medal.

Yixing laughed, smacked a relieved hand to his face, and sent back two words.

_To: Minseokkie_ _  
_ _As expected._

Another selfie pinged back at him within ten seconds, Minseok’s chin pulled in so tightly that his skinny neck had at least three rolls in it, his tongue between pursed lips, eyes rolled to the ceiling to look at the medal dangling above his head from out of frame. Yixing snorted and sent him a selfie of his own, one finger pressed into his dimple, his smile angelic.

_To: Minseokkie_ _  
_ _Proud of you~_

_From: Minseokkie_ _  
_ _gross._

_From: Minseokkie_ _  
_ _< 3 xx_

Yixing smiled and tucked his phone back into its nook. He wished more than anything that he could have accompanied Minseok to the Northeastern Championships, but with his weekends now occupied at the rink it looked unlikely he’d be able to play support crew for the foreseeable future. Every spare minute was spent here, swapping shoes for skates, facilitating and monitoring and supervising, as well as occasionally patching up any knees that got too badly scraped.

There was nowhere he’d rather be, really - save for anywhere Minseok was.

They’d been open for the past few weekends, and Yixing was beginning to recognise a small handful of regulars, including a pair of lanky, rowdy boys whom he mentally referred to as Gangly and Ganglier. Ganglier was, at the present moment, amusing Gangly by pretending to attempt flips and instead throwing himself across the floor in a dramatic sprawl. Yixing was tempted to tell them to knock it off, but there were so few skaters at the rink that they weren’t really getting in anyone’s way, so he decided to leave them.

“Excuse me?”

A girl stood at the edge of the counter, holding out a handful of coins.

“Hey,” Yixing smiled. “How can I help?”

“Can I have a cola?”

“Sure.” He opened the minifridge and grabbed a can, set it in front of her and took the coins she offered. He ran an eye over them, tallying them up in his head, then paused. The soda was $1.50; she’d given him $1.30. Yixing hesitated, then dropped the coins into the register. Twenty cents didn’t matter.

“Thank you,” she mumbled, opening the can and taking a careful sip.

“Are you having fun?” Yixing asked.

She looked up at him, wide eyes and flushed cheeks. “Huh?”

Yixing nodded towards the rink.

“Oh.” She shrugged. “Yeah. I wish I could use the ramps, but…”

Yixing frowned. “What’s wrong?”

“The older boys won’t share.”

Yixing followed her gaze. _Ah._ The “older boys”, apparently, were Gangly and Ganglier. He’d assumed by the dearth of skaters down that end of the warehouse that they weren’t getting in anyone’s way, but it seemed it was everyone _else_ who was trying not to get in _their_ way.

“Right,” he said. “I see. Give me just one second.”

“Oh my god, no,” she flapped a frantic hand at him as he opened the office door and began walking towards the barrier. “No, please, I don’t want to get in trouble!”

Yixing turned to look at her. “Who are you going to get in trouble with? I’m the one in charge here.”

She squirmed uncomfortably. “Don’t tell them off, _please?_ ”

“I’m not going to tell them off,” Yixing assured her. “I’m just going to remind them what the rules are.”

He slipped through the gate and strode across the rink towards the ramps at the far end, where Gangly was trying to trip Ganglier on every jump.

“Hi there!”

Gangly turned around, and Ganglier, dodging a trip that never materialised, skidded to a clumsy halt and almost fell on his face.

“Hey,” Gangly said.

“Are you guys having fun?”

Gangly nodded.

“That’s good. I just want to remind you that the rink is for everyone.”

Gangly shrugged. “We’re not stopping anyone from using it.”

“Yeah,” Ganglier added, “there’s heaps of people here.”

“Some of the younger kids are a little bit scared of joining you,” Yixing explained. “I think they’re worried they might get run over.”

Gangly shrugged again. “That’s their problem.”

“Actually,” Yixing said, “if kids are getting hurt at my rink by a couple of clowns who would rather horse around than actually skate, that becomes _my_ problem. I don’t want that problem. I want a rink where everyone can hang out and skate together and be safe and not feel intimidated by a couple of punks who want to play silly buggers instead of sharing the space fairly with everyone. Does that make sense?”

Ganglier was beginning to look a bit ashamed now, rolling one sheepish foot back and forth and nodding at the ground.

“We’re just skating, dude,” said Gangly. “I dunno what you want us to do.”

“Stop trying to wipe each other out, for a start,” Yixing suggested. “And maybe ask the younger kids if they want a turn on the ramps. Take some initiative and share the space. Do you think you can do that?”

Gangly pursed his lips for a second, then nodded.

“Thank you,” Yixing said. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you’re some of the older skaters here. You need to be setting a good example for the younger kids.”

“Yes, sir,” Ganglier muttered.

“It’s about being good members of the community, you know?”

They both nodded, Gangly now looking suitably abashed.

“Good.” Yixing gave them a forgiving smile and returned to the office, where the girl was still waiting.

“Are they mad?” she whispered, soda can clutched between both hands.

“No, not at all.” Yixing nodded towards the far end of the rink. “You can go join them if you like.”

She gave him a disbelieving look, but picked up her skateboard and skittered away towards the stands without another word. Yixing watched after her for a second to make sure she wasn’t about to take her soda into the rink, and when he was satisfied that she was just going to sit with her friends he turned away and picked up his phone.

_To: Minseokkie_ _  
_ _I just got called “sir” by one of the kids._

_From: Minseokkie_ _  
_ _:’D :’D :’D_

_From: Minseokkie_ _  
_ _ha ha ur old_

_To: Minseokkie_ _  
_ _You’re older than me!!!_

_From: Minseokkie_ _  
_ _yeah and i’m not getting called sir at the age of 19 sooo_

_To: Minseokkie_ _  
_ _Do you think you’ll ever get called “sir”, ever?_

_From: Minseokkie_ _  
_ _S H U T_

_From: Minseokkie_ _  
_ _Y O U R_

_From: Minseokkie_ _  
_ _M O U T H_

Yixing chortled into his coffee and resisted the urge to send another taunt about Minseok’s baby face. He put his phone down and took a gulp of his coffee, mentally pouring himself another cup already. He’d been here since six o’clock this morning, and while he was always happy to be at the rink, it was slightly tainted by the realisation that he hadn’t slept more than six hours a night for the last three weeks.

It wouldn’t even be so bad if it were the rink he were coming to every day. But spending five days a week in an office, answering phones and forwarding emails and dealing with the insignificant problems of people who made more money in a year than he’d ever see in his life… it was hard to enjoy weekends at the rink terribly much knowing that that was what he had to go back to come Monday morning.

_From: Minseokkie_ _  
_ _can u pick me up from the airport tonight?_

Yixing smiled and shook himself a little more awake.

_To: Minseokkie_ _  
_ _Of course!_

_From: Minseokkie_ _  
_ _thank u ^-^ xx_

And that made it a little more worthwhile, Yixing thought. In the end, they were in this together. Minseok worked his ass off too, pushing himself harder and higher to achieve greater things every year. Seeing his success was as rewarding to Yixing as if it were his own, and each victory brought them a little closer to achieving the dream they had together: to build a community of people like them, a place where everyone could enjoy, where they could fall and fail and get back up and try again and know that everyone around them was there to support them.

That, Yixing thought, was the most important thing.


	3. Chapter 3

_\--JD--_

Jongdae was so focused on the battle he didn’t hear the tap of feet on the stairs.

“ _Jongdaeee!_ ”

Glancing up, he had a frantic split second of scrambling to pause his game before Minseok tackled him backwards onto the bed.

“ _Ack!_ ”

“What up!”

Jongdae patted him on the back and carefully disentangled Minseok’s arm from around his throat.

“How are you?”

“I’m good, I’m good.” Minseok rolled sideways, adjusted his beanie on his head, and propped himself up on an elbow. “Happy Birthday!”

Jongdae blinked at him. “How did you know?”

Minseok just smiled, then nodded towards the TV. “You playing with your friend?”

“Nah,” Jongdae sighed. “I was gonna, but. He flaked.”

“Gutted.”

“Yeah, it’s…” Jongdae shrugged, “whatever.”

“Well, the good news is, _I’m_ here.” Minseok gave him a winning smile and sat up. “Here you go!”

He shoved a bag at Jongdae’s chest.

“Wh-”

“I didn’t wrap it,” Minseok said proudly. “Saving the planet.”

Jongdae blinked down at the reused fabric shopping bag, then peered inside it.

“I- oh my god-” he reached in and pulled out a small stack of cases: three new video games - which he could already see himself getting addicted to - and, incredibly, a CD of selected compositions by Johann Nepomuk Hummel. “Minseok! What-!”

“Did I get it right?” Minseok, now leaning back with his head on his hands, raised an eyebrow.

“Yes, _yes_ , what the-” Jongdae scrambled off the bed to pop open the CD player on the desk. He took out the Brahms CD and slotted it carefully back into place in the rack on the shelf, then slid Hummel in and pressed play before lying back down on the bed beside Minseok with his legs dangling over the edge.

“How did you know?” he whispered again, staring up at the ceiling as the soft opening strings of _Piano Concerto No. 2 in A Minor_ began to fill the room. “I’ve never even _mentioned_ Hummel, how-”

“ _Dear Google,_ ” Minseok mimed typing in the air, “ _which classical musicians are similar to Mozart?_ ”

Jongdae laughed. “Good call. Hummel was actually the transition between the classical and romantic eras.”

“So Google told me.”

“Thank you.” Jongdae turned to smile at him. “Seriously, thank you, this is the best birthday present ever.”

“Don’t mention it,” Minseok said. “Did you have a good day?”

Jongdae shrugged. “It was alright. Just school.”

“Did your class do anything special for you?”

He snorted before he could stop himself. “No.”

When he glanced sideways he expected to see pity on Minseok’s face, but there was just that familiar contemplation.

“What?”

Minseok shook his head. “Nothing.”

“No, what?”

“Just thinking,” Minseok sighed. “If I’d been here a bit earlier I could have stopped your mom before she started cooking.”

“… Why?”

“So I could take you both out for dinner.”

Jongdae almost bit his tongue. “Minseok, no, that’s- that’s not necessary, you don’t need to-”

“I want to, though.”

“But _why?_ ”

Minseok shrugged. “Why not? It’s a celebration.”

Jongdae could feel the blush sitting hot in his cheeks. “For my birthday? Minseok-”

“Well.” Minseok smirked. “Not _just_ for your birthday.” He leaned closer. “Can I tell you some exciting news?”

“Of course.”

He grinned. “I just got offered a sponsorship deal.”

“Woah woah woah, _what?_ ” Jongdae sat up. “What does that mean?”

“It means some denim company is gonna pay me to wear their jeans when I skate.”

“ _Really?_ Wow. And that’s all you have to do?”

Minseok shrugged. “I mean, I have to like, promote their brand. Be like, ‘yo, this brand is cool and you should wear them too! Be like me, cause I’m famous and cool!’ And like. I can’t admit to wearing anyone else’s jeans. But other than that,” he shrugged again, “I wear their stuff, and they give me an _assload_ of money.”

“Dang.” Jongdae looked back at the ceiling. “That’s really cool.”

“Plus I get a _whole bunch of free clothes_.”

Jongdae laughed. “That’s the important bit.”

“Right? Fuck the money, just give me those threads.”

“I wish I got free clothes.”

Minseok snorted. “Dude, I’ll hook you up. What size jeans do you wear?”

“Uh. I don’t know.” _My mom buys all my clothes_ , was what Jongdae didn’t want to say.

“Lemme see your pants.”

“Ah, what-?” Jongdae squawked a protest as Minseok pushed him over onto his stomach and grabbed the waistband of his trousers. “Minseok-”

“Shh, we’re second cousins, it’s not weird.”

Jongdae smacked an embarrassed hand over his face as Minseok examined the tag in the back of his pants.

“These pants are old and stretched,” he mumbled, “I probably don’t actually fit this size anymore.”

“Okey dokey, I’ll get you a size up. That makes it easy, actually, I’ll just get you the same size as I wear.”

Minseok tucked the tag back into Jongdae’s pants and patted the waistband into place. Jongdae expected a comment on his spaceman underwear, but Minseok just rolled him over onto his back again and lay down next to him.

“So yeah, that’s exciting,” he said, as if he hadn’t just been scrutinising Jongdae’s butt. “I’ve never had a sponsorship before.”

“I’ve never had a friend that’s randomly grabbed my pants before,” Jongdae muttered, still a little in shock.

Minseok laughed. “Sorry, was that too much? I’m used to sports people, we kind of don’t have much of a concept of personal space.”

Jongdae considered it for a second, then shook his head. “No, I think it’s okay. I just… don’t really know how friends work. When they’re not on the internet, that is.”

“Well, I don’t know how friends work when they’re not either overly-handsy skaters or my ex-boyfriend. Or both. So. We’re kind of even.”

Jongdae turned to look at him. For a second there was stillness, the room silent save for the Hummel drifting softly from the CD player.

They weren’t _really_ even, Jongdae thought. He and Minseok were polar opposites in virtually every way. Save for a passing interest in classical music and one recently deceased great-grandfather, they had nothing in common. And yet Minseok seemed to be making an effort to meet Jongdae halfway. No, not halfway, _more_ than halfway. Ninety percent of the way. Minseok was lying on Jongdae’s bed, listening to Johann Nepomuk Hummel with him, asking about his day and his video games and his nonexistent friends. He’d been making a show of taking interest in Jongdae’s life since day one, and the longer it went on the harder it was for Jongdae to believe he was faking it.

“You really like me, don’t you?”

Minseok looked at him, blinking in surprise, and it took a full second of confused staring for Jongdae to realise he’d said it out loud.

“Of course I like you,” Minseok said. “What are you talking about?”

Jongdae opened his mouth and spent a moment just gaping at him like a fish before finally managing to locate his voice.

“I wasn’t sure if you were just hanging out with me because…” _you pity me._

“Because we’re family?” Minseok guessed. “Dude. We’re only second cousins. That’s not a close enough relation for me to feel _obligated_ to hang out with you. Believe me, if I didn’t want to be here, I would not be here.”

“You’ve got better things to do with your time,” Jongdae said.

“Nnnope.” Minseok raised one pointed eyebrow. “I’ve got _other_ things to do with my time, yes. And I choose to fit them around you. Don’t cheapen yourself, dude. You’re worth more than my spare minutes.”

Jongdae struggled for a response to that that wasn’t self-deprecating; he had a feeling Minseok wouldn’t let him get away with putting himself down. Besides, maybe Minseok was telling the truth. After all, it was a forty-five minute drive from the city to Jongdae’s neighbourhood, and Minseok made that trip several times a week just to sit here on the bed and listen to music or get his ass kicked on the Playstation.

Maybe Jongdae really _was_ worth more to him than a momentary distraction.

That train of thought got slightly derailed when Minseok pulled off his beanie to scratch his head.

“ _Woah!_ ”

Minseok jumped and stared at him in alarm.

“What, what is it?”

“You’re _blonde!_ ”

“Oh.” Minseok looked at the broken strands of hair wrapped around his fingers as if he’d momentarily forgotten they had come from his own head. “Yeah, this is the in-between. I think I’m gonna go orange this time.”

“Wh-” Jongdae couldn’t tear his eyes away from Minseok’s hair, even as he jammed the beanie back on his head and tucked most of his fringe away underneath it. “Why?”

Minseok shrugged. “Why not? I’ve done blue to death, I think. I don’t feel like red at the moment, purple feels too tame… orange will be interesting.”

“Do you do this a lot?”

“What, fuck with my hair?” Minseok smirked. “Constantly. I literally only dyed it black for the funeral. I don’t think I’ve had hair that boring since I was fifteen.”

“Wow.”

Minseok grinned up at him. “You’re really not much of a rebel, are you?”

“Uh.” Jongdae waved a hand at himself. “You hadn’t picked that by now?”

Minseok just laughed. “C’mon, dude, let’s go see if your mom needs help with dinner.”

Helping with dinner, apparently, meant crowding into the kitchen with Jongdae’s mom and proceeding to get in her way at every turn.

“Mind out!”

“Oops, sorry.”

Minseok dodged to the side and narrowly avoided getting impaled on her chopping knife as she tipped vegetables into the pan.

“You boys can go relax in the other room if you want,” she suggested. “Don’t feel like you have to help me.”

“But Aunty, I need to learn to cook!” Minseok insisted, blinking his big eyes at her as he stirred the pan. “Otherwise how will I be able to take care of myself when I move out? Oh, whoops.”

Jongdae’s mother scooped the spilled vegetables up off the bench with her knife and dropped them back in the pan. “What do you mean, move out? Are you really going to leave your poor parents all alone?”

Minseok shrugged. “It’s difficult to find much time to be home with them as it is. Between practice and competitions and all the other stuff I have to do, I only really see them late at night if they’re still up when I get home. And now they’re talking about moving back down to be with my grandparents, so it looks like I’ll have to find my own place anyway if I want to stay in the city.”

“You don’t want to live with your grandparents?” Jongdae asked.

“I can’t,” Minseok said. “It’s three hours away. And there’s no rink there. I’d either need to commute to practise, or else give up skating completely. Either way I’d never see my friends, and if I decided to commute then I’d barely see my family either. There’d be no point.”

Jongdae nodded, flattening himself back against the wall as his mother opened the fridge.

“You’re welcome to live with us,” she said, taking the spoon from Minseok and whisking the vegetables around the pan before handing it back and seasoning the mixture.

Jongdae had one terrifying, heart-stopping moment of hope. Minseok, living with them, being there every day. Listening to music and playing video games with Jongdae, watching movies with his mother in the living room, eating dinner with them every night. Where would he sleep? He’d have to share Jongdae’s room. Or maybe Jongdae could give up his room entirely and sleep on the couch. That would work too.

“That’s very kind of you to offer, Aunty.” Minseok pushed the vegetables around to mix the spices in. “But I feel like you would almost certainly get very annoyed with me very quickly, so I’ll spare you the discomfort.”

“Don’t be silly,” she insisted. “You’re always a model guest.”

“There’s a difference between a guest and a resident, though, isn’t there?” Minseok gave her a crooked little smile. “I work odd hours, and I’d hate to burden you the same way I currently burden my mother. I am very grateful that you would have me, though.”

Jongdae tried not to feel too disappointed. As Minseok leaned over and kissed Mom’s cheek, he reminded himself that he still got to see Minseok plenty, more than he ever would have expected to see anyone he could call a friend.

Perhaps it was better that Minseok didn’t stay with them, he decided. There was only so much you could see a person without getting tired of them, and Jongdae wanted to prolong this period of friendship before Minseok inevitably discovered something about him that he didn’t like.

Although, he realised with a spark of surprise, the more of himself he shared with Minseok, the less he could remember what those things were supposed to be.

-

After dinner Jongdae’s mother chivvied them into the living room.

“Why don’t you choose a movie, darling? I’ll just be a minute.”

“Darling,” Minseok teased under his breath as she scuttled back into the kitchen.

“Shut up,” Jongdae muttered, aiming an elbow at Minseok’s ribs.

“Should I call you darling too?”

“Shut _up_ ,” he groaned. “Of all the things to tease me about, all the huge wide variety you have to choose from, you pick the fact that my mother loves me?”

“Darling means ‘I love you,’ huh?” Minseok’s eyes were still sparkling, but he seemed to be making an effort to rein himself in. “I always saw it as a grandma kind of word.”

“It means she loves me more than anything,” Jongdae insisted.

“That’s… really sweet, actually,” Minseok said. “Dang. That’s adorable.” He sat down on the couch and patted the cushion next to him. “C’mon, dude. I’m done ragging on you. Pick a movie.”

As Jongdae slotted a disc into the DVD player and settled himself on the couch, his mother appeared in the doorway again.

“Happy birthday, Jongdae!” she cried. Jongdae looked around and saw that she was holding a cake, a huge thing covered in candles.

“Oh my god, Mom-”

“ _Happy birthday to you,_ _  
_ _Happy birthday to you-_ ”

Minseok threw an arm around Jongdae and joined in, singing into his ear as Mom came to stand in front of them.

“You guys-” Jongdae buried his face in his hands.

“ _Happy birthday dear Jongdae,_ _  
_ _Happy birthday to you!_ ”

Jongdae peeked out between his fingers. The cake was right in front of him, seventeen candles flickering.

“Make a wish,” Minseok said, patting him on the back.

Jongdae closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

_Minseok stays forever._

With Minseok’s hand between his shoulders, Jongdae leaned forward and blew out all the candles.

“Yay!”

“Wooh, nice lungs.” Minseok hugged him to his side. “What’d you wish for?”

Jongdae shook his head. “Can’t tell you. It only comes true if you keep it a secret.”

Mom put the cake down on the side table and began cutting it up. Jongdae turned to look at Minseok, at the wisps of blonde hair sticking out from under his beanie, the silver ring through his left nostril, the cheeky grin on his face.

“Smile, boys.”

Jongdae looked around just as the flash went off.

“ _Mom!_ ”

“Oh, I’m sure that was a lovely shot,” she said, letting the camera rest against her chest again and picking up a plate of cake to hand to Minseok. “I can’t wait to get that developed.”

“If the camera still even works,” Jongdae said, desperately hoping it didn’t. He was pretty sure he was older than the camera, but it was a close thing.

“Of course it works,” Mom chided. “I got a roll of film developed just last month.”

“Fantastic,” Jongdae muttered.

Minseok nudged him in the ribs. “Stop griping and eat your cake. And hit play. Will you watch the movie with us, Aunty?”

“Of course,” she said, perching on the cushion next to Jongdae. “Movie nights are a family activity.”

Jongdae sighed and tried to squish himself inwards to take up as small a space as possible. The couch was only meant for two, but somehow it wasn’t as uncomfortable as he would have expected being sandwiched in the middle. Minseok’s arm was still around his shoulders, his plate of cake balanced on his knees so he could eat with one hand, and Jongdae tried to lean into him as surreptitiously as possible.

There were worse ways to spend a birthday, he thought.


	4. Chapter 4

**_Four._ **

_\--YX--_

The winter passed quickly, and before Yixing could even blink the days were getting warmer, the nights were getting shorter, and the rink was filling with a new crowd of skaters.

Gangly and Ganglier - who he had learned were named Kris and Chanyeol - had acquired a new friend, a short, mouthy kid with a wide smile and a raucous laugh. Byuk something, or Byul, Yixing thought. He couldn’t remember. There were too many kids to keep track of these days, a whole crowd of them filling the warehouse each weekend and sometimes even packing it to capacity. Yixing had had to turn people away a couple of times, when a rough headcount had put them too close to the maximum occupancy for his comfort.

He wished they could keep the rink open during the week as well, but with him at the office every day and Minseok away half the time for competitions or sponsorship meetings it was impossible to guarantee any open hours outside the weekend.

The week before the Northeastern Championships, it occurred to Yixing that it had been a whole year since he’d last slept in past six in the morning.

“Xingy!”

He jumped, jerking upright in his seat as a hand smacked down on the counter in front of him.

“Look alive! What’s up? You look depressed.”

Minseok was grinning at him, fingers drumming against the counter, and somehow it was all too much.

“Woah, woah-” Minseok looked stricken as Yixing pressed a hand to his eyes. “I’m sorry. What did I say?”

Yixing opened his mouth, but instead of words he gave a little hiccup. Trying to keep it in made it sting behind his eyes, and he sniffed, both palms over his eyes in an attempt to push the tears back.

“Oh jeez, oh jeez-” the office door opened, and then Minseok was behind him, wrapping his arms around Yixing’s shoulders and rocking him back and forth a touch too violently to be comforting. “I’m sorry dude, are you okay? Is something wrong?”

“No, I’m just- I-” Yixing took a shuddering breath and wiped uselessly at his eyes. “I’m just really tired. It wasn’t a great week at work, and then my car broke down-”

“Oh shit, what? Your car? When did that happen?”

“This morning,” Yixing sniffed. “About two streets away. I had to push it the rest of the way here.”

“Oh no,” Minseok groaned. “Do you know what’s wrong?”

Yixing shook his head. “There was smoke. I think it’s dead.”

“Fuck. Oh Xingy, I’m sorry.”

“And I fell asleep at work _twice_ yesterday, and I had to turn some kids away this morning because we were full, and they all keep asking why we’re not open during the week when it’s summer holidays, and I hate disappointing them cause we can only take so many at once and some of them always miss out cause they’re never here early enough to get in, and I’m just _so tired_ , I want to enjoy being here but all I can think about is going home and having a nap, and fuck, how am I gonna get home tonight? The bus doesn’t run out my way that late, I-”

“Hey, Yixing, _shhh_.” Minseok’s hand smoothed across Yixing’s head, dislodging his fingers where they were tangled and tugging at his hair. “It’s okay, I’ll give you a lift home, that’s an easy problem to solve, okay? Right now, right now I want you to go into the back room and have a nap - I’ll run the counter, you just sleep for a bit. There, that’s another one fixed. And by the time you wake up, I’ll have solved all the others too.”

“Minseok, I- _how_ , you can’t-”

“Shhh. Just go have a nap. I’ll fix everything, I promise.”

Minseok pulled Yixing up out of his seat and pushed him towards the inner door. He unrolled the red sleeping bag, laid it out on the floor, opened it and guided Yixing in, pulling his shoes off and zipping the sleeping bag up all the way to his shoulders. Then he sat down beside him for a second, stroking his hair and scratching gentle fingers across his scalp until the soft _ding_ of the bell on the front counter pulled him to his feet.

“I’m gonna go look after the kids,” he whispered. “You just sleep. Okay?”

Yixing nodded, staring at Minseok’s retreating back until the door closed behind him, throwing the room into darkness.

-

When he awoke, trailing the last fragments of a dream, he couldn’t guess how long he’d slept. The room was still dark, though now it seemed like there was less sunlight to be blocked by the blinds across the one tiny window. Yixing rolled onto his back and rubbed his eyes. What time was it? He slid one hand down into the sleeping bag and patted his pockets, but his phone was still out in the office. He’d have to get up to go find out.

It was only as he pulled the door open that he realised how quiet it was. When he had fallen asleep it had been to the muffled hum of the rink, the shouts of the kids and the scrape of wheels on rails, but now as he opened the door there was none of that to greet him. The rink was silent and empty save for Minseok sitting at the counter, pen in hand.

Minseok looked around as Yixing closed the door behind him.

“Hey!” he smiled. “Did you sleep well?”

Yixing nodded. “What time is it?”

“Just after nine. I sent everyone home about an hour ago.”

“Oh my god, I slept for-”

“Eight hours.”

Yixing groaned. “I’m sorry. I was supposed to be working-”

“No,” Minseok interrupted him, “you were supposed to be sleeping. I was working.”

“You wanted to skate, though.”

Minseok raised an eyebrow. “With that crowd in the rink? No way. I finished my practise just now - I had the place to myself, it was lovely.”

Yixing sighed and rubbed his eyes. “Can you still give me a lift home?”

“Of course.” Minseok beckoned Yixing over. “First I wanna show you this.”

“What?” Yixing stepped forward and peered over Minseok’s shoulder at the notebook on the counter in front of him, rows and columns of numbers jotted down and scribbled out and circled in bold. “What is this?”

“Okay.” Minseok slid an arm around Yixing’s waist and pulled him closer, leaning his head against him for a moment before letting go and returning to the page. “I’ve been just straight-up paying the rink’s costs out of pocket, right? But it’s been a year, we’ve got a pretty good idea of what it costs to run this place by now.”

Yixing nodded.

“So what I’m gonna do,” Minseok said, “is I’m gonna take half of my winnings from each competition, and I’m gonna pay them to the rink.” He circled the number at the top of the last column. “And from that, we pay all the operating costs. The power, and the heating, and the internet, etcetera.” He circled the next couple of figures. “Assuming I’ve estimated those costs correctly, and assuming I keep winning everything,” he circled the last number in the column, “that’s what we should have left.”

“And what’s that for?” Yixing asked.

“That’s your salary.”

Yixing’s jaw dropped.

“Wh- Minseok, no-”

“Quit your stupid job. Work here full time instead.”

“Minseok, I can’t- that’s too much, I can’t take that much money-”

“Jesus Christ,” Minseok said, “how little are they paying you?”

Yixing clamped his mouth shut, cheeks flaming.

“If you work here,” Minseok said, “we’ll be able to stay open all week.”

And that was the kicker, really. Because Yixing _had_ been lamenting their inability to open more than two days a week. The only thing standing between him and those extra days was his office job, which he needed to pay rent, but now Minseok was offering him enough money to pay his bills and _then_ some, just to sit in this corner office and supervise the kids.

It was ideal. And yet Yixing couldn’t bring himself to accept it.

“Minseok.” He shook his head. “I can’t take your money, that’s yours, those are your winnings. I can’t.”

Minseok sighed, grabbed Yixing by the hips and pulled. Yixing squeaked, arms flailing, but Minseok was calmly gathering him into his lap, strong hands allowing no resistance.

“Oh Xingy, my Xingy. You sweet, silly boy. Do you remember when we were scraping pennies to buy our first skates? And now look at us. I’m making more money than I’ll ever be able to spend. Not just from competitions, either, but from sponsorships and endorsements and advertisements and all that. If I keep on at the pace I’m at, I’ll be set for life. And you’ve worked so hard to help me get where I am now, but you’re still stuck in that stupid office, running memos for corporate men who will never give a shit about you or anything you want out of life. That’s not fair, is it? You busted your ass to build this rink with me, and now I win competitions by the practise I do here and you don’t get any kind of thanks for it? That’s wrong, Xing. That’s not fair to you. You work really hard here, and you should be paid for it.”

“But- half your money-”

“No, half my _winnings_. I’m not offering you my sponsorship money. Just a small part of the money that I make as a direct, cause-and-effect result of the practise I do at this rink. I put half my winnings into the rink. We use whatever we need from that to pay costs. And the rest goes to you, as payment for being here running the place.”

Yixing frowned, considering it. “Would you work here too?”

“When I can. I’m gonna be away a lot for competitions and meetings and stuff, but I’m sure I can squeeze in a day or two each week. You work four, I work two, and we’ll close on Mondays.”

“Then we’d be able to open six days a week…”

“ _Exactly._ ” Minseok’s arms squeezed around Yixing’s waist. “The kids’ll be so happy. And isn’t that why we’re doing this in the first place?”

Yixing hummed. “I guess so. I’ll need to give notice at work, though.”

“Orrr you could just walk out with both fingers in the air and they probably wouldn’t even notice.”

Yixing laughed and put a careful arm around Minseok’s shoulders. “I’ll give two weeks’ notice. Will we need to do any official businessy tax stuff, if I’m going to be working for you?”

“Hey! You’re not working for _me_ , you’re working for the rink. But probably, yeah.” Minseok sighed. “I’ll ask my dad, he’ll know. Don’t worry, I’ll get it sorted. You focus on telling your boss where to shove it.”

Yixing nodded. He leaned his chin on Minseok’s head, arms around his shoulders, letting Minseok’s hands on his waist keep him secure. They sat like that for a minute, quiet in the vastness of the empty warehouse. Then Yixing yawned.

“Still tired?” Minseok laughed. “You just slept the whole afternoon.”

“Mm.” Yixing yawned again and pushed himself to his feet, patting Minseok’s head. “I’m hungry. Can you drop me home?”

“Yeah.” Minseok checked his watch. “Any chance I could sleep on your couch? I don’t want to wake my parents up when I get home.”

Yixing nodded and rubbed his eyes, blinking them a little wider. “Mi casa, su casa. You gotta drop me back here in the morning, though.”

“Of course.” Minseok grabbed his backpack from under the counter and flicked the lights off as they left the corner office. “Benefits of working for the rink include the motorbike taxi service. Here, take my helmet, I’ll wear the spare. You know what I want? One of those sweet bluetooth helmets where it relays your phone through the bike, so you can listen to music and take phone calls while you’re riding.”

“That’d be pretty cool,” Yixing agreed as he buckled the helmet under his chin and climbed onto the bike behind Minseok. “Hee. Tiny boy on giant bike.”

“ _Stoppp_ ,” Minseok groaned. “I’m never gonna grow any more than this, dude, if you don’t drop it now you’re gonna be making that joke for the rest of your life.”

Yixing laughed as the bike rumbled to life beneath them.

“I guess I’m gonna be making that joke for the rest of my life, then!” he yelled over the growl of the engine.

“What?” Minseok yelled back. “I can’t hear you! I’ve suddenly gone deaf!”

Yixing barely had time to roll his eyes before they were roaring out of the parking lot and turning onto the main road, the wind whipping up under his helmet as Minseok accelerated to fill the empty road.

“Dinner on the way?” Minseok called back to him.

Yixing shook his head. “I’ve got food at home!”

“Cool cool!” Minseok took the onramp to the highway and, upon finding it mostly empty, kicked down a gear and gunned it.

Yixing’s heart pulled tight with the same joyful fear he always felt on the back of Minseok’s bike. They were zipping between cars, owning every pocket of empty space as it opened up in front of them, and Minseok’s expert handling had them moving at a constant speed the whole time, their weaving and turning smooth and unbothered by the traffic.

Minseok’s bike was almost like a magic carpet, Yixing thought. In spite of the exhilaration, he’d never felt so safe.

They pulled up outside Yixing’s apartment building, and Yixing slid off the bike so Minseok could haul it up onto its stand. He unlocked the front door and they crept up the stairs to Yixing’s floor.

“You hungry?” Yixing asked as Minseok pulled his shoes off.

“Yeah. You got food?”

Yixing nodded. “I can make noodles.”

“What, ramen?” Minseok rolled his eyes. “Should have let me buy dinner.”

“I’m not taking any more of your money than I can help,” Yixing insisted.

“Idiot,” Minseok muttered under his breath as he followed Yixing into the kitchen. “What good is having money if I can’t spend it on you?” Yixing made a noise of inarticulate protest, and Minseok snorted. “You _know_ you’d be the same if the positions were reversed, Xingy, don’t lie to yourself.”

“Of course I would, but I-” Yixing smacked the pot down on the stove.

“Shh, you’ll give yourself an aneurysm. Just make the noodles.”

Yixing sighed and shook his head. There was no arguing with Minseok when he’d made up his mind about something, whether it be a new skating trick or a relationship or the best use of his ridiculous wealth. Yixing didn’t even know why he was fighting it at this point. If Minseok wanted to throw his cash around, why shouldn’t Yixing reap the benefits?

_Because you haven’t earned it._

But… hadn’t he? Hadn’t he worked hard on the rink for the past two years, first building it and then running it? Hadn’t he poured the concrete of the forecourt himself, bolted the rails to the floor himself, stocked the fridge with soda himself? Maybe he did deserve some kind of recognition for that. And if the money was on offer, if there was a job going at the rink… surely it was conducive to their common goals for him to take it?

He tipped the cooked noodles into a bowl.

“There you go. Enjoy.”

“Thanks.” Minseok patted him on the back before taking the bowl. “I am going to _inhale_ this.”

“I feel like that would not be very good for your lungs,” Yixing said drily.

“I’M GONNA DO IT ANYWAY.”

They ate in companionable silence at the kitchen table. Somewhere around the halfway point Minseok started trying to play footsie with Yixing, and without a word spoken it turned into a competition of Minseok trying to stick his foot up the leg of Yixing’s pants and Yixing trying to pin Minseok’s feet to the floor, all without either of them showing anything on their faces.

Finally Yixing picked up his bowl, slurped the last of his noodles into his mouth, and pressed his big toe hard into the largest metatarsal bone of Minseok’s right foot.

“ _Ow!_ ”

“I win,” Yixing said, calmly getting up and rinsing his bowl as Minseok scowled and rubbed his foot.

“How can you win if there’s no rules?”

“Just cause you don’t know what the rules are doesn’t mean there aren’t any.”

“You’re a cheater,” Minseok glared.

“How can I cheat if there are no rules?” Yixing turned and smiled at him, cheekily angelic, and Minseok burst out laughing.

“Okay, yeah, you win.”

“Yes, I do. Do you want a drink?”

Minseok shook his head. “Just water is fine.” He took a glass and filled it from the jug in the fridge. “Do you have a spare blanket I can use?”

Yixing cast a glance towards the living room. “You know you don’t have to pretend you’re sleeping on the couch, right?”

Minseok shrugged. “I’m not gonna just assume you want me in your bed.”

“Minseok, how long have we been friends? Of _course_ you can share my bed.” He glanced over his shoulder as Minseok followed him into the bedroom. “Do you need some pyjamas?”

“Nah, I’m just gonna sleep in my T-shirt.”

“No you’re not, you were just skating in that shirt, it’s all sweaty. Not on my sheets, please.”

“See, this is why I suggested I sleep on the couch.”

Yixing took an old T-shirt out of his pyjama drawer and threw it at Minseok’s head. “Just take your damn shirt off.”

“I remember the last time you said that to me.”

“Oh my god, _shut up_.”

Minseok laughed and tugged his shirt off. “ _Now_ do you want me to sleep on the couch?”

“No, I just want you to be quiet and get into bed.”

“Ooh, now _that’s_ one I’ve heard bef-”

“ _I am not a violent man but I will strangle you_.”

Minseok was still chortling as he climbed onto the bed and pulled the covers up over his lap.

“C’mon, turn the lights off and get in here.”

Yixing paused with his hand on the light switch and took a moment to appreciate the sight: Minseok sitting in his bed, wearing his shirt, grinning at him with that same old twinkle in his eye. Yixing flicked the light off before Minseok could catch a glimpse of the colour in his cheeks.

He tripped in the dark, misjudging the distance between door and bed, and Minseok caught him as he stumbled.

“Right here,” he said, holding Yixing’s wrist to steady him. “You want this side or the wall side?”

“I don’t mind.”

“You can have the wall side, then.”

That necessitated climbing over Minseok, kneeling on his shins and almost kicking him in the crotch before they were finally settled side-by-side.

“You’re bony,” Minseok complained, rolling onto his side to face Yixing.

“You were the one who wanted that side.”

“ _You_ were the one who just about castrated me.”

“I did not, don’t be dramatic.”

Minseok stuck his tongue out, just visible in the moonlight as Yixing’s eyes began to adjust to the dark.

Once upon a time Yixing would have kissed it back into his mouth. Now he wrinkled his nose at Minseok, cheeks burning.

“Go to sleep,” he said.

“Mhm.”

There was a moment where Minseok just looked at him. Yixing wondered whether he was the only one who felt suddenly breathless.

“Goodnight,” he whispered.

“Goodnight,” Minseok echoed.

They stared at each other for another moment. Then Minseok closed his eyes and rolled onto his back.

“Sleep well.”

“Yeah.” Yixing shuffled back towards the wall. “You too.”

He tucked his hands tightly under his armpits and closed his eyes. He tried to ignore Minseok’s gentle breathing. He tried not to feel his own heart throbbing in his chest.

_\--JD--_

_* Suho has signed in_

_Chchchen: Hey_

_Chchchen: Suho_

_Suho: hello!_

_Chchchen: Where were you yesterday?_

_Suho: ?_

_Suho: yesterday?_

_Chchchen: We were supposed to be playing?_

_Suho: i was busy_

_Chchchen: …_

_Suho: wat_

_Chchchen: You could have let me know._

_Chchchen: I waited all afternoon for you._

_Suho: sry. i forgot_

You’re sorry, but not sorry enough to be bothered to type out the word “sorry”, Jongdae thought.

_Chchchen: Whatever, it’s fine._

_Suho: we can play now if u want_

_Chchchen: I can’t, my friend’s about to come over._

_Suho: lol friend?_

_Chchchen: What?_

_Suho: i didnt no u had any friends_

Jongdae stared at the screen in disbelief. That was cruel, he thought. He didn’t want to qualify that “friend” meant “cousin”, because he hadn’t told Suho anything about his family and he wasn’t going to start now. He also didn’t want to protest that he _did_ have friends, because he didn’t, aside from Minseok, who was related to him and therefore didn’t count.

After a long moment he logged out without saying another word.

When the doorbell rang five minutes later, he was still struggling not to cry.

“Yo,” Minseok said as Jongdae pulled the door open. “How’s it going?”

Jongdae shrugged, stepping back to let Minseok in. “Alright.”

Minseok squinted at him for a second.

“Liar,” he concluded. “You’re upset. What’s wrong? Did you have another fight with Soho?”

 _Suho_ , Jongdae thought, then decided he didn’t care enough to correct him. “He said I didn’t have any friends.”

“Well that was rude of him,” Minseok said, setting his shoes aside and following Jongdae into the kitchen. “I thought _he_ was supposed to be your friend.”

“I guess not.” Jongdae opened the fridge and passed Minseok a soda. “I mean, he’s not wrong.”

“Of course he’s wrong,” Minseok said. “What do you think I am?”

“My cousin?”

“ _Second_ cousin,” Minseok said.

“Why do you need to make that distinction?” Jongdae sighed. “Why can’t you just call me your cousin?”

“Because,” Minseok said, “there’s a difference. Cousin implies a sense of familial obligation. Second cousin means that sure, we’re related, but that’s not why we hang out. It means that I _choose_ to be your friend, and that I spend time with you because I actually like you.”

Jongdae rolled his eyes, but when he opened the fridge again it was more to hide a smile than because he really wanted to see if the contents had changed in the last thirty seconds.

“So.” Minseok sat down and cracked open his soda. “Summer’s going fast. You excited to start college?”

Jongdae paused, heart sinking. Had he really not mentioned this to Minseok?

“I’m… I’m not going to college.”

He cringed at the clank of Minseok’s soda can against the table.

“Excuse me?” Minseok spluttered. “What do you mean, you’re _not going to college?_ Are you crazy?”

_No, just poor._

“I can’t afford it,” he said flatly.

“ _Jongdae_ ,” Minseok groaned, “why didn’t you tell me, I-”

“I’m going to take a year and work,” Jongdae cut him off. “If I get a full-time job and work hard for a year, I’ll have enough to pay my fees.”

“But-”

“And that way I don’t have to borrow anything, or take money from anyone. I’m paying for my degree myself. Not my grandparents, not my mom. Me.”

That, evidently, was clear enough. Minseok fell silent.

Jongdae closed the fridge without taking anything out and turned around to face him. Minseok’s lips were pressed into a mutinous line, but at least he seemed to be capitulating.

“I guess this gives you time to figure out what you want to study,” he conceded.

“I know what I want to study,” Jongdae said.

“Really?”

Jongdae nodded. “I’m gonna do advertising.”

“Wow.” Minseok blinked at him. “That’s cool.”

“I figure I can get a good job with that.”

“Yeah, definitely.” Minseok nodded. “Good for you, dude.”

Minseok still didn’t really understand, Jongdae thought, and perhaps he never would. It wasn’t about just getting what you wanted; the important thing was to work hard for your goals and make compromises where necessary. And if it took a little longer, or you had to sacrifice some things, then at least you knew you’d achieved it honourably, without taking free handouts from a rich relative just because they wanted to give their money away.


	5. Chapter 5

_\--JD--_

By the time Jongdae turned eighteen he had worked two hundred hours, broken three mugs, burned himself five times on the steaming wand, and made more cups of coffee than he could possibly count. He also had enough money in his bank account to pay for a third of his first year of university.

“By my math,” he told Minseok, “I should be able to save enough between now and next fall to cover my first and second year, and hopefully most of my third as well. And then I either gotta get a scholarship for my fourth year, or else work full-time over the summer and-”

“Jongdae,” Minseok interrupted. “I did not rescue you from your mother’s clutches for the evening so you could stress about savings. It’s your birthday. Relax. And shoot the damn balls.”

Jongdae sighed and turned back to the hoop.

“My hand-eye coordination is terrible,” he said, hand hovering over the start button. “I’m gonna suck.”

“Uh, with that attitude, yeah. You play this one, I’ll play a shooting game. We can laugh at each other. Now go!”

Minseok slammed his hand down on top of Jongdae’s to press the button.

“Ahhh!” Jongdae scrambled to pick up the first of the balls as they all came rolling towards him and began tossing them one by one at the hoop.

“Faster, you gotta go faster!”

“ _Aaaahhhhh!_ ”

He missed the first twelve shots completely, got one in by chance, then missed the next eight and finally managed to score the last two more carefully before the timer ran out.

“Wow, I suck.”

“I think that’s a record low score,” Minseok agreed.

“Why don’t you try it?”

Minseok flexed his fingers and inserted another token. “I warn you, I was on my high school’s A team.”

“I expect a perfect score, then,” Jongdae said, then smacked the button. “Go!”

Minseok picked up the first two balls and shot them calmly at the hoop. One in, two in, then a third, a fourth, the fifth ricocheted off the side of the hoop, six, seven, eight- Jongdae leaned against the wall to watch as Minseok neatly sank forty-two out of fifty shots in thirty seconds.

“Dang,” Jongdae muttered. “You really are good.”

“I told you.”

“What’s the high score?”

“Uh…” Minseok waited as his score danced across the screen and disappeared, then gave a bark of laughter. “Ninety. Fuck that. I can’t throw three shots a second. Two, maybe. Not three.”

“I can’t even get one.”

“Ehh. You’re better at other things. C’mon, come kick my ass at the fighting games.”

As Jongdae slid a token into the next machine and hit start, Minseok rolled his shoulders, arching his back until it popped.

“I am too young to be getting old already,” he groaned.

Jongdae side-eyed him as their fighters popped up on the screen.

“You need to take better care of yourself.”

“Who’s got time for that?” Minseok grinned. “You ready?”

“Bring it.”

Minseok’s fighting strategy, it turned out, did not differ from Playstation to arcade game: he just mashed buttons.

“You’re literally kicking in the _opposite direction_.”

“Well if you would just come over here-”

“Just press A!”

“ _Which one is A?_ ”

“Ugh, you _freaking suck_.”

“You hadn’t figured that out by now?”

Minseok was laughing, leaning away as if it would help his fighter dodge Jongdae’s punches.

“Just hurry up and die,” Jongdae muttered.

“Hurry up and kill me.”

“I’m trying!”

Jongdae roundhouse kicked Minseok’s fighter in the head, and he reeled backwards off the screen.

“Ahhh, dead.”

“Finally.” Jongdae gave the machine a grateful pat, then clapped Minseok on the back. “I’m impressed you managed to last a whole minute.”

“Anarchy is the hardest to fight,” Minseok grinned. “One last game before we go have dinner?”

“Hmm.” Jongdae looped his arm through Minseok’s as they wandered through the arcade. “Oh, I know. How about those?”

Minseok followed his gaze and snorted.

“Are you ready to be absolutely slaughtered?”

“If you can.”

Minseok stalked towards the motorbike racing game. “You don’t know who you’re fucking with, dude.”

“Pretty sure it’s a tiny boy on a giant bike.”

“ _Oh my god I’m going to kill Yixing._ ”

Jongdae snickered as Minseok slotted a token into the machine.

“C’mon, Jongdae, you scared?” Minseok threw a grin at him, then slid his denim jacket off his shoulders and turned to hang it over the bar in front of the bikes.

“Holy-” Jongdae almost choked on his tongue and doubled over to cough the air back into his lungs.

From the front, with his jacket on, Minseok’s T-shirt was plain black. On the back, however, were the words, “Insert Alien Dildo Here,” with an arrow pointing down towards the hem.

“Oh my god,” Jongdae wheezed.

“Chicken,” Minseok accused, completely misreading Jongdae’s distraction. “Get over here so I can wipe the floor with you.”

Things didn’t go entirely to plan once the game started, however.

“This is- ah, shit- this is _nothing like riding an actual motorbike_.”

“It turns out the video game is in fact _a video game_ ,” said Jongdae, who had played it before.

“Shut up,” Minseok muttered. “There we go, now we’re getting somewhere.”

Minseok won, but Jongdae made him work for it. When they screamed into the finish line, barely half a second separated them.

“Nice.” Minseok offered Jongdae a high five as they climbed off the bikes. “I like that one. It actually feels like a fair competition.”

“We’ll have to come back here and play it again, then.”

“Mhm.” Minseok slung his jacket around his shoulders and took Jongdae’s hand to lead him towards the front of the arcade.

“Oh my god - is that Kim Minseok?”

Jongdae froze. He couldn’t tell where the whisper had come from, but Minseok had clearly heard it too, and he glanced at Jongdae.

“Is it alright?” he murmured, squeezing Jongdae’s hand. Jongdae nodded, and Minseok turned to face the girl sidling up to them.

“Hi, um, are you Kim Minseok?”

“Yeah, that’s me.” Minseok smiled. “What’s your name?”

“Krystal Jung. I’m a _really big fan_.”

“That’s awesome, Krystal. Do you skate?”

She shook her head. “No- yeah, I mean, not- not skates, I- I skateboard.”

He shrugged. “Skateboarding’s cool too.”

“I wanna longboard,” she said, “but my mom says it’s dangerous.”

Minseok tilted his head to the side, as if considering it. “Well, that’s true. But there’s an element of danger to all the sports we play, right?”

She nodded. “Mom says I’m gonna break my leg.”

“Arm, more likely,” Minseok said. “Don’t tell her I said that.”

Krystal laughed. “I won’t.”

“Hey, I would love to stick around and chat with you, Krystal, but it’s my second cousin’s birthday, so-”

“Oh, yeah, yeah.” She smiled at Jongdae, who gave her a little wave in return, then turned back to Minseok. “Hey, uh, could I maybe have your autograph? If not, that’s, that’s cool too.”

“Yeah, of course!” Minseok waved away her hesitance as he reached into his jacket for a pen. “Do you have something you want me to sign?”

She nodded and, after a moment of flustered searching, pulled a tiny notebook out of her bag and handed it to him.

“Krystal…” Minseok muttered, flipping to a clean page and beginning to write. “Good luck… with the longboarding… And _always wear your armour._ ” He signed his name with a scribble and handed the book back to her. “How’s that?”

“Oh my god, Amber’s gonna freak,” she whispered. “Thank you, thank you so much, I’m so-” she broke off and pressed a hand over her mouth to keep a squeak in.

“No worries. Take care.”

Minseok held out a hand, and Krystal shook it with a delirious giggle before running back to her friends, both hands pressed to her face.

“You wanna go get dinner?” Minseok said, turning back to Jongdae and taking his hand again.

Jongdae nodded and pulled his collar up around his neck as they left the arcade.

“Does that happen a lot?”

“Hm?”

“Autographs and stuff.”

“Oh.” Minseok shrugged. “I guess? Depends how recently I’ve won something.”

Jongdae ducked his chin to grin into his jacket. “You have fangirls.”

“You sound surprised.”

“I wouldn’t have thought there would be a lot of girls who were into skating.”

Minseok snorted. “And that kind of attitude is exactly the reason there aren’t more. There’s heaps of girls that want to do this sport, man. They’re just discouraged from participating by overprotective mothers and men who think skating’s a man’s sport.” He laced his fingers between Jongdae’s and swung their joined hands between them. “Do you know no woman has ever won even a regional competition? None. Ever. That’s fucking ridiculous. There’s one girl who’s come second at _East_ and the Northeasterns a couple times, and I think there’s another girl currently holding third place at _Atlantic_ , and that’s it. And at _World_ , it’s just Victoria, the _East_ girl, and she’s placed third a grand total of once.”

“Wow.” Jongdae whistled. “Do you think that’s just cause the girls aren’t as good, or-?”

“I think it’s because they’re not encouraged to pursue the sport seriously. They’ve got to prove themselves twice as good to get half the support. It’s _bullshit_.”

“That sounds rough.”

“Understatement.” Minseok huffed and tugged Jongdae across the road. “One day I want a girl to just clean out the whole competition. Sweep the regionals and then take gold at _World_. That’d be great.”

Jongdae cut him a glance. “Would you be willing to give up your medals for that?”

“What, you mean go easy on her? Fuck no.” Minseok shook his head. “I’m not gonna throw the game just to let her win, that’d be patronising as fuck. But if she comes along and she’s genuinely so good that she knocks me off the top spot?” He grinned. “Well, she’d be doing something no man’s ever been able to do. I’d be proud of her.”

Jongdae gave a little snort of laughter. “I sincerely hope someone takes you down a peg one of these days,” he said. “If you keep winning everything like this, your ego’s gonna get so big it’ll suffocate you.”

“I can’t think of a better way to go, honestly.”

“Smothered by your own ego,” Jongdae laughed.

“I’d die happy,” Minseok grinned.

“Idiot.”

_\--YX--_

Fall turned to winter. Yixing had noticed the crowd at the rink, less concentrated now that they were open six days a week, was steadily thinning down from the summer rush. By the time December arrived only the most dedicated skaters remained, among them Kris Wu, Park Chanyeol, and their loud friend Byun Baekhyun. Baekhyun seemed to have very quickly become the ringleader of their gang, despite being neither the biggest nor the best skater among the three of them. He was like a wobbly lion cub, Yixing thought: cocky as hell, but more roar than anything else, and constantly tripping over his own paws.

The days were dark and cold now, and Yixing was immensely glad that he had managed to acquire a new car - a little yellow Mini, bought second-hand from an old lady whose doctor had advised her not to drive anymore. Yixing vowed to take better care of this car than the last one, and to that end found himself a couple of good books on engines so he could learn about his new baby’s inside workings.

On Christmas Eve, Minseok came over for dinner. He brought with him a bag of groceries, and kicked Yixing out of his own kitchen with strict instructions not to interrupt him unless the building was on fire.

Yixing had to admit, when Minseok finally opened the door an hour later, that it was probably a good thing he hadn’t been allowed to help. He didn’t know where Minseok had learned to cook, but the food he set on the table was a damn sight better than anything Yixing could have come up with.

“Merry Christmas, Xingy. It’s not much, but it’s food.”

“It looks wonderful,” Yixing said, sliding into his seat with wide eyes on the dishes. “I didn’t know you could cook like this.”

“I’ve been spending time with Jongdae’s mom,” Minseok said, returning from the kitchen with a bottle of champagne and two of Yixing’s mismatched wine glasses. “I told her I was going to starve once my parents moved away, and she took pity on me and taught me to fend for myself.”

“Is that still happening, the move?” Yixing asked.

“Yep,” Minseok sighed. “Next summer, probably. I’m gonna have to find myself somewhere to live.”

“I’m pretty sure there’s an apartment upstairs for rent,” Yixing suggested, but Minseok shook his head.

“I don’t want to live in an apartment. I want a house of my own.”

Yixing stared at him. “You’re gonna _buy_ a _house?_ ”

Minseok shrugged. “Why not? It’s not like I don’t have the money for it. I mean, almost. By the end of next season I will. There you go, try that.” He handed Yixing a glass of champagne and poured one for himself. “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas,” Yixing agreed, toasting his glass against Minseok’s. “So wait, I know how much you make from the competitions, obviously. But you’re getting money from your sponsors and stuff too. Just how rich _are_ you?”

Minseok bit his lip. “Um. Well.”

“You don’t have to tell me,” Yixing said, and took a sip of his champagne.

“Next paycheck I’ll be a millionaire.”

Yixing choked.

“Hey, breathe.” Minseok smacked him between the shoulders. “You okay?”

“You’re a _millionaire?_ ” Yixing spluttered.

“Just about.” Minseok shrugged. “Does that surprise you?”

“A little bit. I didn’t realise you were getting that much from sponsorships.”

“Yeah, they’re paying me… a lot.”

“No shit.”

“And I don’t spend that much, so…”

“Are you kidding me?” Yixing raised an eyebrow. “You spend _so much money_.”

Minseok shrugged. “A little bit here and there.”

“You just spent five hundred bucks on Jongdae’s Christmas present.”

“It’s pocket change to me.” Minseok spread his hands. “This is what I mean. I make more money than I know what to do with. I might as well put it towards something tangible and useful rather than just letting it collect interest in my account.”

“Yeah, I guess so.” When he was confident that Minseok had dropped all the bombshells he had up his sleeve, Yixing took another mouthful of champagne.

“Anyway,” Minseok sighed. “Let’s eat.”

“Oh, yeah.” Yixing nodded, turning back to the food on the table. “This looks really, really good.”

“Here’s hoping it tastes good, too,” Minseok grinned. “Bon appetit.”

-

By the time they finished eating, the bottle of champagne was half gone. Yixing began to clear the dishes, but Minseok took them out of his hands.

“You’re gonna drop everything and break it all.”

“Says who?”

“Says you’re drunk, Xingy. Let me do it.”

“Pssht.” Yixing flopped down on the couch and watched as Minseok disappeared into the kitchen with the plates. “You’ve had just as much to drink as I have.”

“Mhm, but I’m not as drunk as you are.” Minseok returned, wiping his hands on a tea towel. “I have a higher alcohol tolerance.”

“How does that work? You’re smaller than me. You’re tiny.”

“Rude.” Minseok poured himself another glass of champagne and joined Yixing on the couch. “You’re just a lightweight.”

“Well you better catch up to me, then.”

Minseok raised his glass. “I’m trying.”

Yixing smiled and closed his eyes. Minseok’s feet were nestled beside his in the middle of the couch, and Yixing wriggled his toes until Minseok slid his foot on top of them to hold them still.

“You’re all wiggly.”

“Mhm.” Yixing reached out and grabbed Minseok’s glass to steal a sip. “I’m full of beans.”

“You’re full of booze.” Minseok took the glass back. “I’m cutting you off.”

“You’re not the boss of me.” Yixing slid down the arm of the couch and tangled his feet between Minseok’s. “Just cause you’re cute doesn’t mean I have to do what you say.”

“Oh yeah?” Minseok raised an eyebrow and drained the last of his champagne, then set the glass on the floor. “You’re really drunk, huh.”

“A lil bit,” Yixing admitted.

“You’re not gonna remember this in the morning.”

“Yeah I am. I have an _excellent_ memory.”

“You literally forgot where you put your phone five times yesterday.”

“It kept walking away from me.”

“Phones don’t have legs, Yixing.”

“Shut up.”

Minseok just laughed. “You’re an idiot.”

“Yeah, but you love me.”

“Do I?”

“Mhm.” Yixing let his eyes drift shut and snuggled into the couch cushions. “You love me lots.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” he sighed. “That’s why you keep me around. And pay me to work at the rink. And cook me Christmas dinner.”

“Hm.” When Yixing opened his eyes, Minseok was smiling. “That’s solid logic, Xingy. You must be right.”

“I told you,” Yixing mumbled.

Minseok laughed. “Do you need to go to bed?”

“ _No_ ,” Yixing insisted. “I’m not tired.”

“You’re fading.”

“I’m _fine_. I wanna stay up and see Santa.”

“Okay,” Minseok grinned. “We’ll listen for his reindeer on the roof.”

“Stupid,” Yixing said. “This is an apartment building, the roof’s aaallll the way up there.”

“We’ll have to listen hard, then.”

Yixing snorted and wiped his mouth. Minseok was laughing at him again, his eyes bright with mirth and champagne. His feet were warm against Yixing’s, one toe tracing gently back and forth across the top of Yixing’s foot.

“You need more tattoos,” Yixing blurted.

“Oh?” Minseok raised an eyebrow. “Do I?”

“Yeah.” Yixing wriggled his foot up Minseok’s ankle. “You don’t have enough on your legs. Or your chest.”

Minseok hummed. “That’s true. I’ve got a piece in mind, but I don’t know where I want it. Maybe my back… or my leg. I’ve still got to think more about it. What do you think, Xingy? What should my next tattoo be?”

“A… a cat.”

“A cat?”

“A cat,” Yixing confirmed. “A big cat.”

“I could be down for that.”

“A _rainbow_ cat,” Yixing added.

Minseok chuckled and reached down to tickle Yixing’s foot until he jerked and twisted away with a squeal.

“A rainbow cat, huh?” he said. “You think I should get one of those.”

“M _hm_.” Yixing nodded. “A big rainbow cat.”

“Alright. I’ll think about it. You’re falling asleep, Xingy, I think it’s bedtime.”

“Nooo,” Yixing protested, fighting to keep his eyes open. “I wanna stay up till Santa comes.”

“Santa only comes when you’re asleep,” Minseok said. “If you stay awake, he won’t come. You’d better go to bed right now or there won’t be any presents when you wake up.”

“Idiot,” Yixing snorted. “The presents are all at your parents’ house.”

“Wow, you’re so sharp,” Minseok laughed. “Can’t fool you at all.” He stood up and held out his hand to Yixing. “Come on, buddy. Let’s put you to bed.”

“Y’gonna sleep in here with me?” Yixing yawned as he drifted into the bedroom.

“If you want me to.”

“Of course I want you to,” he mumbled. “I always want you to.”

“Good to know,” Minseok laughed. “Alright, take your pants off.”

“You do it.” Yixing lay back on the bed, one hand behind his head to hold it up so he could bat his eyelashes at Minseok.

“I’m not taking your damn pants off, Yixing, come on.”

Yixing giggled and unzipped his jeans. Shimmying out of them while keeping his butt on the bed was a challenge, but he managed it eventually. Minseok watched him from the opposite wall, arms folded, eyebrows raised.

“I’m not sure whether that was impressive or pathetic.”

“ _Both_ ,” Yixing insisted, then shivered. “I’m cold.”

“Get under the damn covers then. And shuffle over.”

“Mmm.” Yixing rolled towards the wall and held his arms out. “Snuggle me.”

Minseok kicked his jeans off, turned the lights out, and slid in next to him. Yixing dragged him closer and pressed his face to Minseok’s hair with a contented hum.

“Ugh, you’re an octopus,” Minseok grumbled. He shuffled around in Yixing’s arms until they were chest-to-back, Yixing’s arms around Minseok’s waist. “Comfy?”

“Mhmmm.” Yixing snuggled his face into the back of Minseok’s head. “You’re nice.”

“Am I? I’m debating whether to tease you mercilessly about this in the morning or never mention it again and pretend it didn’t happen.”

“What happened?” Yixing yawned. “We’re just cuddling.”

Minseok laughed. “Yeah, you’re right. Go to sleep, you big lump.”

“Mmm.” Yixing kissed the back of Minseok’s neck. “Merry Christmas, Minnie.”

Minseok shivered, so Yixing wrapped his arms around him more tightly.

“Merry Christmas, Xingy,” Minseok whispered.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We seem to be counting down to something... what could it be?
> 
> This chapter has a couple of minor content warnings - see end notes if you would like details.

**_Three._ **

_\--JD--_

On the other side of the room, the buzzer sounded.

“I think Yixing’s here.”

“Yixing’s here!” Minseok jumped up from the table and sprinted for the intercom. “Watch this, Jongdae, it’s _awesome_.”

He pressed a button, and Yixing’s face filled the screen.

“Hey Xingy!”

On the monitor, Yixing jumped in surprise.

_“Oh! That’s loud. Hello, is that Minseok?”_

“Sure is. C’mon in.” Minseok pressed another button, and at the other end of the hallway the door unbolted itself with a clunk.

“Holy shit, that’s fancy,” Jongdae whispered. “But also, why don’t you just walk to the other end of the hall and open it yourself?”

“Because then I wouldn’t get to use this cool thing.”

Yixing pushed the door open. “Hello?”

“Hey!” Minseok skipped into the hallway to meet him. “Welcome to my new abode!”

“Woah.” Yixing’s eyes were round as he took in the hallway, the staircase up to the second floor, the polished wood of the doors and banisters. “This is your place?”

“Yep,” Minseok grinned. “Pretty sweet, huh?”

Yixing seemed awestruck. “It’s so big.”

“I think it’s unnecessarily large,” Jongdae said as they wandered back into the huge, sunlit kitchen. “Why do you need this much space, Minseok?”

“Okay, a) it’s a nice, new development that’s reasonably secluded so I’m not gonna get a whole lot of stalkers or anything, and this is the size of house that was on offer so that’s what I got. And b) I need space to throw some rad ass parties.”

“Ah, of course,” Yixing murmured. “The parties.”

“The first of which will be at the end of next month when I get back from kicking ass at _World Xtreme_. You’re coming, right Xingy?”

“Hm?” Yixing looked up. “I’m always down for a party.”

“No, not the party, you idiot, the competition. You’re coming with me to _World_ , right?”

Yixing looked surprised.

“Uh- I-” he shook his head. “How? Who would run the rink?”

“Oh, good point.” Minseok frowned for a second. “How about one of the older kids? They’re pretty responsible, right?”

Yixing wrinkled his nose. “I mean, for an afternoon, maybe. But not open to close for four days straight.”

“We could just be closed for those days.”

“We could.” Yixing looked doubtful. “It feels kind of frivolous, though - doesn’t it?”

Minseok sighed. “I guess so. Man, I miss you coming to competitions with me.”

The thought crossed Jongdae’s mind that _he_ could volunteer to mind the rink, but he very quickly decided to keep his mouth shut. The thought of being around that many sporty people at once for even one whole day, let alone four, terrified him.

“Maybe next year,” Yixing said. “We’ll figure something out.”

“Yeah.” Minseok sighed. “Anyway. You wanna see the rest of the house? I’ll show you upstairs. And there’s a backyard too.”

Jongdae and Yixing followed Minseok back into the hallway and up the stairs to the upper floor.

“So this is my room.”

“ _Woah._ ”

Jongdae’s jaw dropped as they entered the first bedroom. Minseok’s room at his parents’ house had been small and cramped, with a tiny divan bed taking up most of it. This room was huge, a giant new bed dominating most of the space with its black, skull-splattered duvet.

“Dang,” Jongdae muttered. “This place is nuts.”

“This isn’t even the master bedroom,” Minseok said. “That’s down the other end of the hall. It’s scary big.”

Scary big was about right, Jongdae thought, as they reached the last door.

“This is more space than one human needs.”

“Right?” Minseok waved a hand at the room. “It’s too huge, I didn’t like it, so I put my stuff in the second bedroom instead. I dunno what I’ll do with this one. Guest room, probably.”

“This room is the size of my apartment,” Yixing said.

“That’s what I’m saying. These people build their houses too damn big.”

“I hate to break it to you,” Jongdae said, as they headed back downstairs, “but you _are_ one of these people now.”

“No,” Minseok groaned. “Please, no. I don’t want to be a rich asshole, I just live here, c’mon man.”

Jongdae shrugged. “I mean, you have a stinkin’ big house in a stinkin’ rich neighbourhood. What exactly separates you from any one of your neighbours?”

“Hmm.” Minseok hopped up to sit on one of the barstools at the kitchen counter. “Well, for one thing, I’m about twenty years younger than any of them.”

“That’s true,” Yixing said. “The only people here under forty are actual children.”

“And I’m pretty sure any one of these snobs would take one look at me and run screaming.” Minseok crossed his eyes to look at the curl of green hair hanging down in front of his nose. “I don’t exactly fit the image of the neighbourhood.”

“Hm. Good point,” Jongdae admitted.

“Also I fucking guarantee you none of these geezers know how to party like I do.”

Yixing laughed. “You do throw pretty good parties.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Jongdae said drily.

“Hey,” Minseok leaned forward on the counter to grin at him. “You should come to my next party. You’re old enough.”

“No thanks.” Jongdae grimaced. “I can’t think of anything more unbearable than spending the evening with a hundred skaters.”

Minseok snorted. “Where’s your sense of fun?”

“It encountered a load error somewhere around the word ‘party.’”

“You damn gamers and your introversion.”

“You damn jocks and your alcoholism.”

“How the hell are you two related?” Yixing wondered.

“Still trying to work that one out myself,” Jongdae said. “I’m beginning to think Minseok might be adopted.”

“Oi!” Minseok pointed at him. “Why am _I_ the adopted one? I’ll have you know I am the spitting image of my grandfather.”

“How can you even tell anymore, under all that ink?”

“Oh shit,” Yixing muttered, “he’s good.”

Minseok laughed. “There we go. There’s the family resemblance.”

“Same sharpness of tongue,” Yixing agreed. “Have you been mentoring him in the art of sass?”

“Nah,” Minseok shook his head. “I think he’s a natural.”

Jongdae grinned, tongue between his teeth. It definitely _wasn’t_ natural - he would never have dared speak like this to anyone, let alone an older relative, two years ago - but something about the solidity of Minseok’s friendship gave Jongdae the guts to reflect the sarcasm he was dealt. He still got that same twist through his stomach, the terrified thrill of daring each time he said something snarky or rude, but every time, without fail, Minseok would just laugh and give it right back twice as sharp.

There was something refreshing about a friendship this unpretentious. Jongdae had by now admitted to himself that Minseok was his one and only real friend: the kids from school had gone off to college and left him behind without looking back, so he’d let go of them; Suho had proven himself to be thoroughly uninterested in any part of Jongdae’s life that really mattered, so he’d deleted him from his buddy list and moved on. What remained was Minseok, as well as the occasional, pleasantly ambivalent presence of Yixing.

For the first time since he’d run out of fingers to count his age, Jongdae had a friend he knew wouldn’t leave him.

_\--YX--_

Much as he might wish otherwise, Yixing would not be accompanying Minseok to _World Xtreme_ this year. Therefore, the next best thing: somewhere in the back room at the rink was the remainder of the jumble lot of odds and ends they’d gotten at an estate sale back when they were fitting out the warehouse, and somewhere in that jumble was a little TV that looked like it might be just the right size to fit into the slot beneath the stereo shelf. Yixing hauled it out into the office and got it situated on the counter.

Stepping back to assess his work, he nodded. He could see the screen while still keeping an eye outwards to the kids in the rink, and the kids could get a good look from their side without leaning too far forward. If he couldn’t be there in the crowd, then perhaps he could create a new one.

-

It was hardly an arena-filling audience, but it was something; the counter was about half a dozen kids busier than usual, coming and going in between turns on the half-pipe. Most of today’s bunch were fairly new to skating, and to them _World_ was an unimaginable kingdom - the Olympics of skating.

Even on a tiny screen, watching Minseok shoot for gold was breathtaking.

“Oh hey, this guy!” One of the smaller skaters nudged his slightly older friend as the picture cut to a close up shot of Minseok carefully windmilling his arms in the centre of the rink. “I heard he’s really good.”

“Of course he is,” she replied. “You know I met him one time? He used to work here.”

A third kid snorted derisively. “Yeah, right. Kim Minseok’s a legend, why would he be working here?”

“I swear, he was!” She puffed her chest out indignantly, hands planted on hips. “He was working behind the counter!”

“Uh-huh. Sure. Totally believe you.”

Yixing hid a smile in his coffee. It was more than his life was worth to wade into the fray, but if he ever encountered her without her crew of tweenage boys he might just reassure her that her memory served her perfectly fine.

On the screen, Minseok squared his shoulders and began his run.

Within ten seconds, the kids could confirm for themselves what Yixing had always known as a core truth of his being: Kim Minseok was lightning on wheels, and when he hit the first ramp, physics became negotiable.

“I don’t understand how he gets that high,” the shortest of the tween crew muttered. “He doesn’t even look like he’s jumping.”

-

One afternoon in their late teen years, Yixing and Minseok had made the journey out to the urban skate park. “Park” was a bit of a misnomer - aside from a half-pipe, a bowl, and a handful of rusty rails, there wasn’t much there. All the smaller ramps had patches of rot, and trusting them with any sort of weight was a dangerous gamble. Trees grew at inconvenient moments through the concrete. One of the rails had a bad habit of coming unbolted. A careless step could land you toe-deep in used condoms or needles.

But they had to skate somewhere, and at any rate it was better than getting kicked out of the supermarket parking lot.

“I’m gonna skate a diamond on the half-pipe,” Minseok declared.

Yixing tipped his head to the side, considering it. “What do you mean?”

Lifting a hand, Minseok traced a path up to the top of the pipe, down to the very edge of one side, up the other to the middle at the top, and back down to the other edge. “Cover the whole thing, corner to corner.”

Yixing frowned. “I don’t think that’s gonna work, dude. Do you think you can turn tightly enough when you’re going that fast?”

“Pfft.” Minseok waved a dismissive hand. “I’ve nailed tighter corners.”

_On the flat, yeah,_ Yixing thought, but Minseok was halfway across the park to the half-pipe by that point, and Yixing simply had to hurry after him.

As it turned out, Minseok had been right in one sense - he could absolutely make that turn at the bottom of the curve. What he hadn’t considered, however, had been the air he’d get at the top. On that kind of diagonal, with that much momentum, he massively overshot the tip of his diamond and launched himself off the edge of the half-pipe.

Yixing realised the second Minseok’s skates left the ramp how badly they’d miscalculated, and as Minseok’s flip turned into a panicked kedidi he had a full three seconds to try and gauge where Minseok would come down before realising it didn’t matter - the whole park was concrete, and wherever he landed, it was going to hurt.

Sure enough, Minseok hit the ground with a crunch, the wind visibly leaving him as his whole body slammed into the concrete.

“ _Shit, fuck, shit-_ ” Yixing was at his side before Minseok could even draw another breath, skates skidding out from underneath him as he dropped down next to him. “Are you alright? Minseok, holy shit-”

Minseok groaned and curled his legs up towards his body, then planted one hand on the concrete and pushed himself up. When he shifted the other arm out from under himself and tried to put the rest of his weight on it, though, it just crumpled beneath him.

“Ah- fuck-” Minseok cringed bodily inwards - and then, to Yixing’s horror, started to cry.

“Oh my god, oh my god, are you okay? Please tell me you’re okay.”

“It hurts-” Minseok clutched at his arm, midway between wrist and elbow. “Fuck, _fuck_ \- it hurts so bad, it’s like when I rolled my ankle but worse.”

“Shit. Is it just that one spot?”

“I can’t tell, it just- _everything_ hurts. I think it might be sprained.”

Yixing reached out, but stopped short of touching Minseok’s arm. Even with the wrist guard and elbow pad covering half of it, something didn’t quite look right.

“Minseok, I think it might be broken.”

“Fuck,” Minseok whispered, a small, cracked sound as another sob welled up in his throat. “It can’t be broken, I still have competitions to win.”

“What do I do? Should I call an ambulance?”

“No, no!” Minseok made an attempt to wave him off, then hissed and returned to cradling his arm against his chest. “I’m fine, I’ll be fine, I just need to go home and ice it and it’ll be fine.”

Yixing looked at him doubtfully, but when Minseok lifted his chin the set of his jaw was resolute, in spite of the tears still rolling down his cheeks.

“I’ll grab your bag,” Yixing murmured, before skating over to the giant fork of roots that split the very centre of the park to retrieve their gear.

Having helped Minseok to get his skates off and his shoes on, Yixing paused; with one arm out of commission and the other occupied shielding it from the world, there didn’t seem to be a clear way to help him up. Finally he wrapped an arm around Minseok’s back and tried his best to boost him as he staggered from his knees to his feet.

“I’ve got your stuff, dude,” he said. “You sure you’re alright catching the bus?”

“Yeah.” Being vertical didn’t appear to be helping much - the tears were streaming in real earnest now, every breath a gasp.

The first couple of steps seemed to go okay, but before they’d even made it off the concrete Minseok was visibly struggling. Every few feet a shudder of pain would stop him in his tracks, and finally he ground to a halt, shoulders heaving with each sob.

When Yixing ducked his head to catch a glance at Minseok’s face, he realised his eyes were so glossed over with tears that he wasn’t looking at the ground so much as staring blankly downwards.

“Minseok…”

“It’s fine, I’m fine,” Minseok whispered, though it took three huge gulps of air just to get the words out.

“You’re _not_ fine,” Yixing insisted. “I don’t think you should just go home, man, I think you need to see a doctor.”

There was a moment of near-silence while Minseok struggled with the breath going in and the sobs coming out.

Finally,

“I think maybe you’re right.”

Yixing breathed a sigh of relief.

“My doctor’s office is on the way if we take the bus into town,” Minseok continued. “It’s like two stops before the bus station.”

“Okay. Okay, let’s do that.” Yixing gave Minseok another look, trying to appraise the feasibility of getting him to the bus stop without causing him more damage. 

A glance backwards made up his mind for him; they’d barely made it a tenth of the way, and already Minseok was in too much pain to walk another step.

“Okay, let’s try this.” Yixing adjusted the bags to sit more securely on his back, then tilted his head to attempt to gauge the best way to cause Minseok the least amount of additional pain.

“Try what?”

“Can you hold that arm really still?”

“I’m doing my best, dude.” Minseok paused for a couple of gasping breaths, then adjusted his grip on his arm. “’Kay, go.”

With one arm wrapped around Minseok’s shoulders, Yixing bent to place the other behind his knees and, as smoothly as he could manage, scooped him up off his feet. Minseok cried out, but once Yixing had him firmly against his chest he subsided into gasps, each breath sharp on the inhale and slightly vocal on the way out.

“Sorry,” Yixing whispered.

“No, no, you’re- you’re good, dude, it all hurts anyway.”

Yixing waited while Minseok’s breath slowed back to a measured drag through clenched teeth, then took a careful step. When that didn’t elicit a yelp, he tried another.

“You okay?”

“Yep,” Minseok gasped. “Just go.”

Small though he was, Minseok wasn’t exactly a negligible weight - especially with the added bulk of two gear bags over Yixing’s back. Nevertheless, he thought he managed a fairly smooth gait across the park and out to the road, where the bus stop was less than a block away.

“There we go,” he murmured, sliding Minseok onto the bench and dropping their bags at his feet. “You okay?”

Minseok nodded, though his face was still blotchy and tear-stained. “When’s the bus?”

Yixing squinted at the ancient timetable affixed to the pole. “Five minutes or so?”

By the time the bus rumbled around the corner twenty minutes later, Minseok was on the verge of tears again. His wrist was swollen around the edges of his armour and beginning to mottle purple, and Yixing was beginning to think “broken” might not quite cover it.

The bus squealed to a gentle halt in front of them and rattled open its doors.

“Hi,” Yixing called to the driver. “You don’t drive past the hospital by any chance, do you?”

The driver glanced away from his rearview mirror to look at them. He blinked, frowned, then sighed and reached for his radio.

“Morons,” he declared, “the pair of you.” Then, into the radio, “Can I get an ambulance on my route…”

-

“He must be really light to get that much air,” the tallest of the tweens marvelled.

“I’ve heard he’s actually super tiny in real life!” 

“Oh yeah? Tinier than you?”

“Stop it! I haven’t hit my growth spurt yet!”

“It must be a size versus muscle kind of thing,” the girl murmured as the two boys bickered. “He’s short, but he must also be strong, right?”

Yixing nodded, but said nothing; she wasn’t really talking to him anyway. Minseok _was_ strong, thanks to long hours of training and a single-minded dedication to breaking his own records, but there was more to it than that. He had a knack for aerodynamics, an intuition of how to move on skates that so far seemed unique among the competitive cohort. The raw power that had once launched him off a half-pipe and into a full-arm cast complete with pins now sent him soaring above the rink, gravity be damned.

_It’s the butterfly wings,_ Yixing thought, and grinned to himself.

-

The range of options in front of him was slightly daunting. More daunting than that, the sheer volume available for each distinct choice.

_How much did you spend on all this?_ Yixing wondered, and in the same breath realised that Minseok could probably have doubled the budget and still barely made a dent in his winnings.

“Choices, choices.”

Yixing glanced over his shoulder and shuffled aside to make way for the skateboarder at his elbow.

“Yeah, I don’t know where to start,” he said.

“How much do you think he spent on this?” the skateboarder wondered as he reached past Yixing to grab a beer.

_Too much,_ Yixing thought, but instead said, “When you’re the world champion you can afford to be generous, I guess.”

The skateboarder laughed. “Who are we kidding? I bet he has sponsorships from all these companies, he probably gets this shit for free.”

Yixing gave a non-committal hum. Minseok actively avoided alcohol sponsorships, but this random dude didn’t need to know that.

“Well, good luck choosing.” The skateboarder raised his beer in a toast before slipping back through the crowd.

Yixing sighed. _More wine,_ he decided, reaching for a bottle of white. It was difficult to tell which bottles had been started and which were still full, as each cap or cork had been replaced with a single-direction spout and wrapped in tamper-proof tape. Yixing couldn’t decide whether that should be a commendation of Minseok’s level of responsibility or a condemnation of his trust in his guests. Maybe a bit of both.

Having filled his glass and slotted the bottle back into place, he turned to see Minseok sliding through the crush of people hanging around the kitchen peninsula.

“Minnie!”

Minseok looked around, startled; the look on his face as he caught sight of Yixing was a shockwave of relief.

“Xingy!” he cried, reaching out to grab him by the hand. “I’ve been looking for you! When did you arrive?”

“About an hour ago. I finally had to kick the last kids out so I could close up.”

“Love that,” Minseok grinned. “What dedication.”

_From me, or from them?_ Yixing wondered, but said nothing as Minseok tugged him through the kitchen towards the hallway.

“I have so much to tell you, Xingy, this weekend was just _so_ good- Oi! Not in my house, you idiots!”

With an abrupt about-face, Minseok strode over to the small group loitering in the alcove leading to the bathroom.

“No illicit substances at my parties, please and thank you,” he said, tugging something from the hands of the closest BMXer and tucking it into the chest pocket of his polo shirt instead. “You wanna do that shit, do it on your own property.”

Yixing didn’t catch the response, but the little group looked suitably embarrassed, and as Minseok turned to rejoin Yixing he saw the main offender empty out his shirt pocket and shove everything into his bag instead.

“You think they’re gonna listen to you?” he asked as Minseok took him by the hand again and pulled him through into the hallway.

“Well if they don’t, and I catch them again, they’ll be going home early. I’m willing to give them a chance before I blacklist them.”

They headed up the stairs, skirting the small clumps of skaters and longboarders taking the opportunity to sit somewhere comfortably carpeted.

“Hey, Minseok!” one girl called. “Well done!”

“Victoria!” Minseok beamed. “Thanks - remind me to tell you later, I saw a really cool move that I think you’d absolutely crush.”

She shot him a thumbs-up. “Sounds good, dude.”

At the top of the stairs they turned left towards Minseok’s bedroom, where the sign tacked to the door read _THIS ROOM IS OFF-LIMITS. PLEASE HANG OUT LITERALLY ANYWHERE ELSE._ Minseok opened the door, then ducked under the caution tape and held it up for Yixing to follow him. Before he could close the door behind him, though, he stopped.

There was a girl crouched in the far corner of the room, back to the wall and elbows folded atop her knees. She looked up when they entered, but made no move to get up.

“Uh, hey,” Minseok said, and gestured back at the door. “Did you see the sign?”

“Yeah. I’m sorry.” She still didn’t get up. “It’s just- everywhere else was so crowded, and I just- I dunno, I’m probably being stupid, I’m sorry.”

Minseok frowned, then nudged the door shut to block some of the noise from the hall and crossed the room to crouch in front of her.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m- I’m fine.” She tucked her hair behind one ear, then waved a hand as if to dismiss herself. “There was just this guy - he wanted to dance, and he kept grabbing me, and then I told him to leave me alone- I shouldn’t have gotten mad, it would have been fine if I’d just danced with him.”

“Did he hurt you?”

“No- no, not really. He just kept grabbing me.” Her hand shifted slightly towards her chest, an unconscious movement, but neither Yixing nor Minseok missed it.

The way Minseok’s shoulders shifted on that next careful breath read to Yixing like battle armour.

“Would you recognise him if you saw him again?”

“Probably? I dunno. Why?”

Minseok stood up and held out his hand to help her to her feet. “Come with me. It’s alright, you don’t need to talk to him. Just point him out to me.”

As he held the caution tape for her, he glanced back over his shoulder at Yixing.

“Back in a minute, Xingy. This won’t take long.”

The door shut behind them, and Yixing let out a long breath before sitting down on the end of the bed. Whoever that guy was, he was about to get eviscerated - potentially in front of the whole party. Minseok had thrown punches in the past at guys who even _talked_ about that kind of behaviour. Yixing took a sip of his wine and waited.

Whatever happened downstairs, it clearly wasn’t show-stopping; the music didn’t pause, nor the laughing conversations on the stairs. Instead, after about five minutes of uninterrupted party ambience, Minseok slipped back into the bedroom and kicked the door shut behind him.

“Did you find him?” Yixing asked.

“Oh yeah.”

“Who was it?”

Minseok shook his head. “Never seen him before in my life. He looked like he might belong to the longboarding crowd.”

“And? What happened?”

Minseok reached out for Yixing’s glass and took a couple of swigs before answering. “Not much. I tapped him on the elbow and told him it was time for him to go, and he asked why, and I told him that anyone who wants to be in my house has to clear the really low bar of not assaulting women.”

Yixing grimaced as Minseok handed the wine back. “What did he say to that?”

“He just kinda laughed. And I just looked at him, and by then other people were starting to pay attention, so I was like ‘we can do this the easy way where you get the fuck out of my house, or we can do this the fun way where I physically throw you the fuck out of my house. Up to you which one you want an audience for.’”

“I’m guessing he chose the easy way.”

“Indeed he did.”

“Smart man.” Yixing paused for the length of a mouthful. “How’s the girl?”

“She’s okay. I put her under Victoria’s wing, so she’ll be well looked after.”

Yixing pulled a sympathetic face. “Poor kid.”

“Yeah, ‘kid’ is right. I suspect she might actually be too young to be here, but she didn’t seem to be drinking and I’m not about to kick her out if I can keep her safe instead.”

He held his hand out for Yixing’s wine again, and in the breath between asking and giving Yixing felt a thunderclap of realisation.

_My god,_ he thought, _I’m always going to be a little bit in love with you, aren’t I?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings for this chapter: depiction of injury (no blood), reference to off-screen sexual harassment.
> 
> If you would like a visual reference for Minseok's new house, here's a Sims 4 rendition I did a while back: <https://twitter.com/jangjaeyul/status/1279662580840071168>


	7. Chapter 7

**_Two._ **

_\--JD--_

Afternoons like this were too few and far between, these days. Between Jongdae’s classes and Minseok’s practises, competitions and sponsorship engagements, they didn’t often get a day to just quietly exist together. Wandering through the mall was a luxury, browsing and window-shopping without a specific purchase in mind, stopping at a cafe without consideration for what could be eaten quickest.

“I wanna get you some new clothes,” Minseok said.

Jongdae wrinkled his nose. “I don’t _need_ new clothes.”

“You’ve been wearing that sweater since you were sixteen, my dude. You need new clothes.”

Jongdae frowned and pinched the cuff of his sweater between thumb and forefinger. “It’s not that bad, is it?”

“You don’t look like a hobo, if that’s what you’re asking,” Minseok said, “but you could definitely do with a wardrobe update.”

He took Jongdae by the hand and dragged him into a menswear store, where he proceeded to pull clothes off the racks and throw them at him more or less indiscriminately. Jongdae held out his arms and let himself be piled upon, taking the shirts and pants and pullovers Minseok eyed against him until he couldn’t carry any more.

“Alright, you try that lot,” Minseok said. “Let me see when you’ve got something on.”

Jongdae sidled into a changing room and picked an outfit out of the bunch. He slipped the shirt over his head, wriggled into the pants, and looked at himself in the mirror.

_… Wow._

_Dang._

Jongdae unlocked the door and crept out of the stall.

“What do you think?”

Minseok turned around.

“Woah!” He eyed Jongdae up and down with a whistle. “Nice. Very nice. Do you like that?”

Jongdae nodded, glancing over his shoulder at his reflection. He caught sight of his butt and had a moment of distraction. He’d never had a butt like that before. Damn.

“I like them. The pants, I mean. The shirt’s a bit tight.”

“Yeah, the shirt’s not a winner. Why don’t you try that pullover, with the blue?”

Jongdae slid back into the changing room and changed into the next combination, then stepped out for Minseok’s opinion.

“How about this one?”

“Hm?” Minseok glanced up from where he was frowning at the floor. “Oh. Yeah, I like that. The first pants were better, but that pullover is definitely a buy.”

“It’s comfy,” Jongdae agreed. “Shall I try another outfit?”

“Yeah, why not.” Minseok waved him back into the stall.

This time when Jongdae reappeared, Minseok looked distracted.

“Those look fine,” he muttered, barely glancing at Jongdae. “Okay, let’s get that lot and we’ll head out.”

“There are still a couple of things I haven’t tried on,” Jongdae said.

Minseok made a dismissive gesture. “You’ve already tried the best of the bunch. Let’s go, there’s another shop I want to check out.”

Jongdae changed quickly back into his own clothes, and when he opened the changing room door again Minseok was glaring at the wall.

“Are you okay?”

“Hm? Yes. C’mon.” Minseok grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him out of the changing rooms and towards the counter.

Jongdae wasn’t sure where he had gone wrong between outfits two and three, but somehow Minseok’s mood had turned sullen and tense.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “if you don’t want to buy these for me anymore, you don’t have to.”

“What?” Minseok blinked at him. “Of course I’m buying them for you, don’t be stupid.” He piled the clothes on the counter and handed his credit card to the cashier. When the clothes were bagged and paid for he handed them to Jongdae, then took his hand and led him out of the store.

“I wanna get you a jacket,” he explained. “There’s a really nice shop just down here…” he strode down the row of storefronts, tugging Jongdae behind him, until they reached another menswear store.

“This looks fancy,” Jongdae muttered.

“Too fancy for you?” Minseok teased.

“I dunno, what do you think?”

Minseok gazed at the coats on the display mannequins as if considering them on Jongdae.

“You know what?” he said, “Why don’t we think about it over a cup of coffee. I need coffee. Don’t you?”

“Uh. Sure?” Jongdae let himself be dragged back down the mall in the opposite direction, towards one of the cafes at the edge of the food court. Minseok stepped into line and shoved his hands in his pockets, rocking on the balls of his feet as the queue edged forward.

“Does this give you war flashbacks?” he joked, once he’d paid for their order and they were waiting for their drinks.

“Huh?”

Minseok jerked his head at the barista behind the espresso machine.

“Oh.” Jongdae shrugged. “Not really. I was worried it would ruin coffee for me, but honestly I don’t know if that’s possible. I definitely don’t miss it, though.”

“I can imagine. Oh, hey, I’m thinking of buying myself a coffee machine for my kitchen. If I do, will you come over and teach me how to use it?”

“Oh jeez,” Jongdae laughed. “Okay. I can probably do that. It’s not that hard, you can learn the basics in like half an hour. It’s just practise, mostly.”

“Well,” Minseok grinned, “I don’t exactly have oceans of spare time, but I can definitely make room for a cup of coffee each morning.”

“I’m sure you can.”

They took their cups, and Minseok led the way to a table on the near side of the seating area.

“Oh, hey,” Jongdae said, “did I tell you what Mom said last n-”

“So _World Xtreme_ was good,” Minseok interrupted. “I dunno if you watched the broadcast, but there were some crazy good skaters there. There was this one guy who did an upside-down crossed rocket, it was awesome.”

Jongdae blinked. “Uh.” He knew nothing about skating. Minseok knew this. “I don’t-”

“Yeah, I was expecting him to place for like his entire run, but then he _completely_ wiped out on the ramp and I was like ‘man, fucking gutted,’ like imagine having a run that was _that good_ and then just completely blowing it at the last minute. I felt so bad for him, man.”

Jongdae made a sympathetic noise. Minseok clearly wanted to talk about competitions and techniques, heedless of Jongdae’s utter disinterest. Perhaps Jongdae had talked too much about himself today. Maybe this was Minseok’s way of bringing the conversation back to a topic that didn’t bore him.

As Minseok prattled on about the different competitors and their various strengths, Jongdae sipped his coffee, nodding in the right places and making empty comments every time Minseok paused for breath or to take a gulp of his drink.

As Jongdae reached the dregs of his coffee, he glanced over at Minseok’s cup and realised it was empty. It had been empty for the last few minutes, in fact, but Minseok was still lifting it to his lips and pretending to drink.

Jongdae was beginning to suspect that something was up.

As Jongdae set his cup back on its saucer, Minseok raised an eyebrow and jerked his head infinitesimally towards the open space of the mall.

“You done?”

Jongdae nodded. “Yep.”

“Cool.”

Minseok stood abruptly and grabbed Jongdae’s elbow, dragging him after him as he strode away towards the shop they’d been contemplating earlier. They didn’t make it more than a dozen paces before Minseok whirled around.

“Dude, _what the fuck_ is your problem?”

Jongdae’s heart clenched tight in a wash of heat, but Minseok wasn’t talking to him. He was glaring at the young man who had scuttled out of the food court behind them and was now blinking at Minseok in shock.

“I- um-”

“Don’t play dumb,” Minseok said, “don’t think I haven’t noticed you. You’ve been following us for the past two hours. I’m not blind.”

The man opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, then cleared his throat and held out his hand.

“Minseok,” he said, “my name is Kim Junmy-”

“I don’t give a damn what your name is,” Minseok said, “I want you to leave me alone. This is my one day off, I’m trying to have a nice relaxing afternoon, and I don’t need some kid trailing me around the mall and hiding in changing rooms like he thinks he’s some super sleuth.”

The guy didn’t even really look particularly embarrassed, which made Jongdae embarrassed for him.

“I’m a huge fan-”

“Really?” Minseok snorted. “Cause you seem like a creepy stalker. If you’re a fan, if you want to talk to me or take a selfie or whatever, just come up and fucking _talk to me_. Don’t follow me around the mall and take pictures of me when I’m just trying to spend time with my family. It doesn’t make me inclined to do you any favours.”

The guy finally seemed to get the message a little bit, glancing down at his shoes and shuffling from foot to foot for a second before looking back up at Minseok.

“Will you at _least_ give me your autograph?”

Or perhaps he hadn’t gotten the message at all.

“Dude.” Minseok closed his eyes and took what seemed to be a calming breath. “No. Just… no.”

He turned and walked away, catching Jongdae by the arm as he passed him and pulling him away from the young man.

“You have a responsibility to your supporters!” the guy called.

“If by supporters you mean stalkers, then no, I don’t!” Minseok turned and yelled back at him. “I don’t owe you _anything_. Leave me alone.”

He grabbed Jongdae’s hand and strode away towards the jacket store. Jongdae cast one last glance over his shoulder at the young man, who was gazing after them, looking genuinely surprised at this turn of events.

“Sorry about that,” Minseok muttered as they rounded the corner. “I saw him earlier, and then I noticed him again lingering in the changing room while you were trying on clothes. I was hoping he would twig that I’d noticed him and leave us alone, but clearly he’s a little more dense than that.”

“That was why we kept changing direction?”

“Yeah,” Minseok huffed. “I was banking on the fact that he wouldn’t be brazen enough to just straight up turn around and follow us back in the other direction, but he obviously was.”

“Wow.” Jongdae shook his head. “I didn’t even notice him.”

“I’m… a little more attuned to these things than a normal person should reasonably have to be.”

Jongdae grimaced and squeezed Minseok’s hand. “You get this a lot?”

“Ehh.” He shrugged. “Not as much as some. You should see the stalkers Victoria gets, it’s kind of terrifying, they’ve made her an absolute recluse and she keeps having to change her number. But yeah, I’ve had people cross the line once or twice in the past. It’s part of the reason I picked the neighbourhood I did when I bought the house. Nice and secluded, very closed in, unlikely anyone’s gonna come find me there. Plus there’s security cameras at the gates of the development, so, y’know. No-one’s sneaking in without getting their face or license plate on film.”

“Wow,” Jongdae said. “You really are famous, huh?”

Minseok snorted. “Clearly.” He linked his arm through Jongdae’s and hugged him closer to his side. “So. Sorry, I cut you off earlier. Tell me what your mom was saying last night.”

_\--YX--_

“ _Xiiiingy Xing Xing Xingy!_ ”

Yixing looked up from the counter to see Minseok skipping towards him, motorcycle helmet dangling from one hand.

“Oh. Hello! What are you doing in today? I thought you had an appointment all morning.”

“I did,” Minseok beamed. “Just finished. Wanna see?”

“Uh.” Yixing turned his head so he could side-eye Minseok. “Okay? What-”

Minseok grabbed the two sides of his shirt and yanked them apart. Yixing squeaked and reached out a hand to stop him, but the shirt came open easily without sending buttons flying in all directions, and Yixing realised the buttons on the front were just a decorative cover for the snaps underneath. It was on the tip of his tongue to ask why Minseok owned a stripper shirt, but then the two sides of the shirt were open in Minseok’s hands and Yixing’s jaw was on the floor.

“Woah.”

“Right?” Minseok grinned.

“ _Woah_.”

On Minseok’s chest, under a layer of Saniderm, was a cat. A big cat, in a rainbow of watercolour, its fur spilling out across the lines to spiral around Minseok’s nipple and up towards his neck.

“Holy crap,” Yixing whispered. “That’s beautiful.”

“Yeah, I’m really pleased with him,” Minseok said, ducking his chin to peer down at the cat. 

“Did that Tao guy do him for you?”

“Mhm.” Minseok traced a careful finger down the cat’s nose, pushing the blood around under the Saniderm. “Took four hours.”

“Wow.” Yixing leaned his chin on one hand to gaze at the cat. “It looks really, _really_ good.”

“Now I just need a name for him,” Minseok said.

Yixing gave a little hum of surprise. “I didn’t know you’d started naming your tattoos.”

Minseok shook his head. “I haven’t. But I think this guy needs a name. Just him.”

“Oh?” Yixing raised his eyebrows. “Is he special?”

Minseok looked up from examining the cat’s whiskers. He just considered Yixing for a moment, his head tilted to the side.

“Yeah,” he said softly. “Yeah, he is.”

“Cool.” Yixing straightened up and arched his back. “You must be tired, after four hours of that.”

“Mm, yeah.” Minseok laughed. “I think I’m gonna go home and bathe in ice packs. But I wanted to show you first.”

“Oh!” Yixing felt a moment of surprise, a little spark of warmth at how special that made him feel. “Wow, okay. Well, I think it looks really great. I can’t wait to see what it looks like when it’s all cleaned up.”

“Yeah, I hope the colour heals well.” Minseok gave the cat’s ear one last gentle poke, then began snapping his shirt closed. “Watercolour can be hit and miss in terms of whether your skin actually takes it, so I just gotta hold my breath and see whether it holds. It might heal like shit and fade to nothing within like six months.”

Yixing wrinkled his nose. “That’d suck.”

“I’d just have to commit to a lifetime of touch-ups.” Minseok grinned and slung his riding jacket around his shoulders. “Anyway. I’ll see you later, Xingy Dingy.”

“Yeah. Bye, Minnie.”

Yixing leaned over the counter to watch Minseok saunter back to the exit, past the midday crowd of skaters. He paused at the door and turned to give Yixing a last wave, then slipped out into the sunlight. A minute later there came the rumble of an engine, revving and roaring and then fading into the distant traffic.

Minseok’s appearances at the rink were fewer and farther between these days. He had a long list of sponsorships and endorsements, advertisements to film, campaigns to champion, and his practise hours were often late at night, arriving at the rink just as Yixing was closing up and staying until the early hours of the morning.

Yixing knew that Minseok felt bad for the way reality had deviated from their original vision for the rink: both of them running it together, splitting the week between them and both being there as much as possible. Minseok was a fleeting presence nowadays, dashing in between meetings and appointments, occasionally keeping Yixing company in the office for a spare afternoon with his nose buried in the accounts book. Yixing wondered whether any of the kids that skated there were even aware of Minseok’s involvement - he tended to slip past them, blowing in to talk to Yixing and then whirling back out on a wind of purpose.

Yixing didn’t hold it against him. Minseok was at the rink as much as he could be, and Yixing wasn’t about to pretend that running their warehouse was anywhere near as important as the other stuff Minseok was doing. Every week his face appeared somewhere new, on internet ads or a billboard somewhere or in a television interview to promote the latest humanitarian cause he’d signed on with. In all honesty, it was probably a good thing Minseok didn’t appear at the rink much - he was becoming more and more famous with every competition he won, every record he broke, and if it became known that their dinky little warehouse rink was a good place to find him… Yixing shuddered to think of the media circus he’d have to fight through just to open up each morning. There was no need to risk exposing the kids to that. It was better that Yixing ran the rink on his own.

And besides, it wasn’t like Yixing didn’t enjoy being here six days a week. It gave him a sense of purpose, a reason to jump out of bed in the morning. On his Mondays off he found himself feeling a little bit lost, drifting around his apartment doing chores and playing video games to pass the time if Minseok wasn’t free. The only thing he would rather be doing than running the rink was hanging out with Minseok anyway - Yixing took the opportunity to sleep in, but that was about as much joy as he got out of the day.

Being at the rink, on the other hand, was a delight. Despite the long hours, Yixing never felt as exhausted as he used to when he was working a traditional day job. It was relaxing, watching the kids skate from his office in the corner. Whether he was helping the younger ones find the right size of skates to borrow or patching up a scraped knee from a misjudged flip, there was a sense of meaning to everything he did.

It occurred to Yixing that he’d been working at the rink for three years by now, two of them full-time. It was the longest he’d ever spent at any job, but somehow it felt like the time had gone by in a flash. It was only when he looked at the kids and realised how many of them weren’t kids anymore that it popped into perspective just how much of his life he’d spent in this building. Kris Wu and Park Chanyeol were almost seventeen by now, both of them ganglier and more mischievous than ever. Chanyeol seemed to be courting fiery little Byun Baekhyun, stumbling over his adolescent clown feet to impress him with daring tricks and shyly-given sodas. Yixing wondered if Baekhyun knew just how much power he had, whether he was aware that he had Chanyeol wrapped tightly around his little finger. The boy was a menace, Yixing thought, in the most loving way possible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me, slapping the top of junmyeon's head: this bad boy can appear in so many different contexts


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has content warnings for:
> 
> \- health scare  
> \- stigmatised illness  
> \- off-screen sexual assault (uninformed consent)

**_One._ **

_\--YX--_

Another year, another competition season - and this one had begun with a bang.

Minseok was once again attempting to break his own record, this time apparently for how many different gold medals he could sweep in a single season. He’d already outstripped the next closest competitors at _Atlantic_ and _Continental_ , and now he was back to defend his title at _East Xtreme_. Yixing hoped the skaters at the Northeastern Championships were taking notes, because once again Minseok was setting the standard for the year.

At the rink, Yixing quickly found it necessary to tape a dividing line across the counter to ensure there was still room for people to come buy snacks without having to wade through the growing mountain of kids crowded around the TV. He might need to invest in a bigger screen one of these days - the smaller kids could hardly see it over the counter anyway, let alone with a whole gang of teenagers huddled around the box.

The skater currently in the rink was an unfamiliar face, perhaps a newcomer, or one of those skaters who hovered for years around the bottom of the table being forgettable. He wasn’t so forgettable now, though, with his grand flourishes and elaborate spins. Something about him rubbed Yixing the wrong way - there was a flamboyance about him that seemed artificial, as though the performance of skating were more important than the technique. Yixing would almost believe he’d grown up as a figure skater and tried to simply tessellate the skill from ice to inline. The fact that it was almost working for him rankled.

“Keep to that side of the line,” Yixing admonished, reaching across to give one of the younger teens a gentle tap on the shoulder as the skater finished his run. “I’d really like to not scare the grommets off entirely.”

The kid made an indignant noise in the back of his throat. “They’re small, they’ve got room.”

With a roll of his eyes, Yixing nudged him more firmly to the right side of the taped boundary. _You were just as small, last season._ “I need them to actually be able to see that there’s a service counter here. Right now it looks more like a mosh pit.”

“Can you blame us?” the next kid put in, though she did grab her friend by the elbow and steer him into the crowd. “ _Kim Minseok_ is up next.”

“Oh, of course,” Yixing said, wrestling down a smile. “My mistake. Mosh away.”

Watching Minseok take the rink never stopped being a thrill. The careful warmup windmill of his arms, the calculating eye he ran across the ramps and rails - it was as if he were mentally carving out a space for himself in an arena that would always bend to his will. As he stretched his arms over his head, the straps of his tank top shifted just enough to reveal a glimpse of shimmering wings.

And then, with a last flex of his shoulders, he took flight.

The miracle of physics made magic: Minseok soared above the half-pipe, from Phillips 66 to Corkscrew to 900 Mistiest, all seemingly without effort. At one point he landed such a precarious handplant that Yixing was sure he’d overshot, and he clapped a hand to his mouth to muffle a squeak for the breathless heartbeat during which Minseok threatened to tip backwards. Then, with a push, he did - as his hands left the coping his feet flipped down, and he nailed the landing fakie with a flourish that sucked all the breath from Yixing’s lungs.

“ _Holy shit,_ ” he whispered, “don’t _do_ that, you’re gonna give me a heart attack.”

There was a murmur between the kids closest to the counter as Minseok popped a neat half cab and skated off to grind along the rails, switching from crab to crosswalk to neighbourhood grinds with fluent ease. He looked almost like he was tap dancing as he hopped from rail to rail.

Leaping off the caveman rail at the end of the line, Minseok tumbled through the air and landed fakie, crouched and ready for the ramp right behind him to launch him backwards into a berani flip. As he landed, fakie again but in the opposite direction now, he made no move to change course, instead skating straight back towards- _surely not-_

A swing of his arms, a leap and a flip, and Minseok landed on that caveman rail in a precise backslide. The exclamation that went through the crowd of kids was almost enough to drown out Yixing’s gasp.

“Are you _crazy?_ Dude, oh my god-”

A rail at that height should be difficult to jump onto _forwards_ , especially for someone of Minseok’s size. He had just done it backwards, without looking, in combination with a flip. 

“You absolute maniac,” Yixing murmured. The smirk edging through Minseok’s concentration as he jumped off the last rail said he knew exactly the reaction he’d just provoked.

The regional competitions were open entry, a mix of new hopefuls and seasoned competitors, and absent any way to rank them in advance the skating order was more or less random. This year Minseok had drawn the third-to-last slot, which wasn’t bad - still, it was torture having to wait and see if anyone else could match his performance.

Although, Yixing thought, perhaps it wasn’t so bad when the intervening faces were familiar ones. As Minseok stepped out of the rink, the camera cut to a new skater standing at the centre.

“Hey,” the tallest of the young teens whispered, tugging on his friend’s sleeve. “Doesn’t he go here?”

She squinted at the screen, fighting through the grainy picture for recognisable details. “Hey, yeah, that’s Kris! He’s cool.”

“Is he the one who’s friends with Baekhyun?” the third member of their crew put in. “I thought he seemed kinda mean.”

“I was so scared of him when I first started skateboarding,” she agreed. “But he’s nice really. He used to help me balance when I was learning how to drop in on the half-pipe.”

The way that warmed Yixing’s heart. He remembered only too well the early days of the rink, when the gangliest of his little crew had commandeered the far end of the warehouse and run over anyone who got in their way. Fond, too, was the memory of the way they’d accepted the responsibility handed to them as the eldest of his skaters and taken the grommets under their lanky wings. Those grommets - Yixing’s babies - were now as old as Kris and Chanyeol had been then, and the crew wasn’t so little anymore.

How time flew.

Kris’s run went smoothly. There were no flashy tricks or outrageous flips, just a reasonably well-executed line of standard grabs and jumps. If he’d been the first skater on the roster, it would have been a solid opener for the programme. Yixing was proud to have him representing the rink.

After Kris, another face he knew: Chanyeol’s performance was nearly as good as Kris’s, though he did trip on his first grind and almost faceplant off the rail. Still, it was a decent run. They should both be very proud of themselves, Yixing thought.

As Chanyeol pumped a fist into the air and skated out of the rink to meet Kris’s waiting high five, a tense minute of anticipation descended over the stands. Then, from the crackly speakers of the little TV, came the familiar honk that heralded each score.

_THIRD PLACE_

The name that flashed up on the scoreboard was unfamiliar to Yixing, but judging by the tinny cheer that went through the crowd it was probably someone he should be paying attention to.

Another honk. Another unfamiliar name. Yixing realised he was holding his breath.

Honk.

_FIRST PLACE_

Yixing squeezed his thumbs so tight his knuckles cracked. _Oh please oh please oh please,_ there was no _way_ anyone else had skated better -

_Kim Minseok_

It was meant to be a sigh of relief, but the sound that came out of Yixing’s mouth sounded more like a strangled scream.

As the kids clustered around the TV whooped and delightedly slapped each other’s shoulders, Yixing pressed one fist to his mouth and allowed himself the widest grin his cheeks could bear.

“ _That’s my boy._ ”

It wasn’t that Minseok winning was unexpected - indeed, it would probably be a shock if he _didn’t_ win each time his skates hit the rink - but somehow that never made it less exhilarating to witness.

So absorbed was he in watching Minseok take his place on the podium that it took Yixing a moment to register that the third place skater whose results had drawn such a loud cheer was the show-offy young man who had skated before him, all pomp and flourish. Yixing had completely forgotten his name already - Lee something, maybe? He should have paid more attention to the scoreboard.

How could his eyes go anywhere else, though, with Minseok there in the top spot? Beaming, beatific, beautiful in victory, raining stardust enough to reflect a little bit of his light onto anyone who stood close enough.

“Is there something you want to tell us?”

Jolted away from the ecstatic grin on Minseok’s pixelated face, Yixing looked around to see the tallest of the three young teens - the one who’d gone through a growth spurt over the winter and shot up a head above his peers - raising one sceptical eyebrow at him.

“Huh?” Yixing’s voice broke in his throat, and when he lowered his hands from his face he was mortified to feel them come away wet. “Yes, uh,” he cleared his throat, “how can I help?”

“Wow,” the kid said. “Really?”

“Really what?” The back of Yixing’s neck was prickling in a very uncomfortable way.

The kid nodded towards the TV. “Are you in love with him or something?”

“Ah-” Yixing felt the instant flush from the tips of his ears to the pit of his stomach. “I’m- I mean-”

“Would never have guessed the guy who runs our rink is Kim Minseok’s biggest fan,” the kid continued. “What are you, the fanclub president?”

“Ah. Haha. Yeah.” Yixing’s shoulders settled. “Something like that.”

The kid gave a little snort of laughter and shook his head, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at his skateboarder friend. “And I thought _she_ was obsessive about her heroes.” He gave another glance at the TV, which was now showing the wrap-up info for the first half of the day, then flashed Yixing something approaching a peace sign and skated backwards towards the rink. Yixing didn’t quite have the nerve to call after him to look where he was going.

-

It was well after midnight and past time for bed. Yixing had just picked up the remote to turn off the TV when a sudden hammering on the door made him jump almost out of his skin.

“Jesus Christ.” He pressed a hand to his heart, then got up and went to answer it. When he pulled the door open, Minseok tumbled through, already halfway through a sentence and heaving for breath as he threw his helmet and jacket on the floor. Yixing had a fleeting moment of wondering how the hell Minseok had gotten into the building without a key before deciding that a) he had probably just walked in behind a resident, and b) the panic in Minseok’s voice kind of made everything else irrelevant right now.

“- I don’t know what to do, _he didn’t tell me_ , he just- it broke, and then he told me, and _what do I do now_ -”

“Holy shit-” Yixing caught Minseok by the shoulders and pulled him towards the couch. “Minseok, slow down, what happened?”

“His fucking condoms were all expired! He didn’t bother to check it, and I didn’t think to- and then it fucking broke and then he- why didn’t he tell me before, isn’t he supposed to tell me beforehand?”

“Wait, wait, wait- _who?_ ”

“Third place,” Minseok gritted out between his teeth.

“Oh, shit,” Yixing said, “that Lee asshole, or whatever his name was? You went home with him?”

“ _Yes_. We were talking afterwards, and he said he really respected me, and that it was hard being out in sports and he was glad I was making waves and kind of- kind of paving trails, and then we sort of just - one thing led to another - but he didn’t _tell me_ , he didn’t tell me he had it until afterwards, he pulled out and I realised the condom had broken and he was like ‘oh, you should maybe get tested,’ he didn’t even seem bothered, why didn’t he tell me he had it until it was already too late-”

“Had what?”

“ _HIV!_ ”

Yixing’s heart fell through the floor and cold-blooded horror rushed in to fill its place.

“Oh no.”

“ _Yes!_ ” Minseok was on the verge of tears now, his hands clutching desperately, tearing at his chest and stomach until his shirt was bunched and twisted between his fingers. “He just looked down at me and told me I should get tested, and I was like ‘what, do you have chlamydia?’ and he was like ‘nah, I’m HIV positive,’ and I- I just about fucking decked him, Xingy, I was so mad. I- _why would he do that to me?_ ”

“Oh my god.” Yixing’s brain was reeling, his hands holding Minseok’s shoulders uselessly, and all he could think of to do was pull him closer, gather him into his arms and sit him down on the couch as Minseok’s shoulders began to shake and the tears started rolling down his face.

“Why didn’t he tell me?” Minseok sobbed, “why didn’t he just fucking say something before we were at that point, before his old-ass fucking expired condom was broken and he- he even _asked me_ if I wanted him to use one beforehand, like he had a fucking option knowing that he was positive, god, why am I so _stupid_ , why didn’t I check the expiration date? He had it in his hand right in front of me, I could have taken it from him and looked, I had my own goddamn condoms in my bag, I could have used one of my own but I let him use his and now what if I’ve caught it from him? I don’t- I don’t _want this_ , Xingy, I’m so _fucking stupid_ -”

“You’re not stupid,” Yixing murmured. He stroked a hand through Minseok’s hair, lips pressed to the sweat on his forehead as his mind raced, trying to figure out what to do. “We can fix this, it’s not hopeless.”

“ _How?_ ” Minseok wailed. “His fucking jizz is _still in my ass_ , I didn’t have a shower, I didn’t go home, I just put my clothes on and came straight here, and I don’t know what to do now-”

“There’s a morning after pill for HIV, right? I’m sure there is.” Yixing squeezed Minseok tightly to his chest. “I’ll take you to the hospital right now, they’ll be able to help. If you get treated quickly then you might not catch it.”

“I don’t fucking want this,” Minseok whispered.

“Then let’s go to the hospital. Okay?”

Minseok sniffed, pressed his face into Yixing’s chest, then nodded. “Okay.”

Yixing helped him to his feet and grabbed his hoodie from the couch to wrap around Minseok’s shoulders. He was still shaking, and Yixing was beginning to think it was less from crying and more just plain shock.

“Come on,” he said gently, taking Minseok by the hand and leading him towards the door. “Let’s go. The quicker we get to the hospital, the quicker we can make this all better.”

Minseok nodded mutely and pulled Yixing’s hoodie tighter around himself. His hands shook as he tried to zip it up, until Yixing finally reached out and did it for him, then slid a steadying arm around his waist and guided him towards the stairs down to the parking lot.

-

The two-hour wait in the emergency room felt like a year. Minseok sat silently, sullenly, staring at the same point on the floor the entire time. He had Yixing’s hoodie pulled low over his face, his hands shoved in his pockets, and Yixing could tell he was trying to be as invisible as possible. Even in the early hours of Sunday morning the emergency room was busy, full of bar fights and car accidents, and Minseok stood a decent chance of being recognised if anyone looked too hard at him.

It was after three in the morning by the time Minseok saw a doctor. Yixing wondered why the hell it had to take so long - surely time was of the essence? - but the man on the other side of the waiting room with blood trickling from under the handkerchief pressed to his head had been waiting just as long, so perhaps Yixing just needed to reexamine his expectations with regard to what constituted “urgent”.

It was a pale and quiet Minseok that rejoined Yixing in the waiting room some time later.

“Let’s go,” he whispered, clutching his discharge papers to his chest.

Yixing jumped up out of his seat. “How’d it go?”

Minseok shook his head and gestured towards the door. “I’ll tell you later.”

Yixing helped him out of the building and into the car.

“You’re staying at my place, right?”

“Yes please,” Minseok said.

“Good.”

It wasn’t until they were halfway along the highway that Minseok spoke again.

“They gave me a test.” He paused, and Yixing made a small noise of encouragement. “To see if I was already positive. Cause if he made me bleed, or something… if it’s already in my bloodstream, there’s nothing they can do.”

“What did they find?” Yixing suddenly wasn’t sure he wanted to know. He didn’t want to hear that it was hopeless, didn’t want to know that there was nothing that could be done to undo this.

“Negative.”

“Oh thank god.”

“They checked for bleeding, too. Very… thoroughly.”

Yixing winced. “Are you okay?”

“No,” Minseok said. “No, very much not.”

“Right. Yeah. Dumb question.”

There was a rattle as Minseok pulled three tiny bottles of pills out of his pocket.

“I have to go to my doctor tomorrow and get more of these. I gotta take them for the next month.”

“Woah. I thought it was just one pill one time.”

“No.” Minseok shook his head. “No, HIV’s a bit more insistent than that, apparently. I gotta take them twice a day for the next four weeks. If I miss a single dose, it could blow the whole treatment.”

“Holy shit, that’s intense.”

“Yeah.” Minseok shoved the bottles back into his pocket and let his head drop against the window with a clunk. “They said it’s gonna suck.”

Yixing pulled a sympathetic face. “Nasty side effects?”

“Potentially. Depends if I’m lucky. Current evidence suggests I am not lucky.”

“Current evidence suggests I have a third place asshole to murder,” Yixing muttered.

Minseok snorted. “I appreciate the sentiment.”

They parked in the garage underneath Yixing’s building, and Yixing helped Minseok out of the car and up the stairs - slowly, painfully, one step at a time. Yixing wasn’t sure if it was nausea from the pills or if the physical examination had really been that painfully invasive, but Minseok was swaying a bit by the time Yixing unlocked his apartment door.

“Do you want a shower?” Yixing asked.

Minseok nodded. “More than anything.”

Yixing guided him into the bathroom and paused with a steadying hand on Minseok’s back.

“Do you need help?”

“No,” Minseok shook his head. “No, I’ll be okay.”

“Okay.” Yixing carefully let go of Minseok and, when he didn’t immediately topple over, stepped back towards the door. “Yell if you need me.”

“Yeah.”

Yixing closed the door and waited until he heard the water turn on and the shower door close. Then, at a loss for anything else to do, he went into the kitchen and grabbed two mugs out of the cupboard. Maybe he couldn’t make it stop hurting, but he could make tea.

Twenty minutes later, when the water was still running in the bathroom, Yixing knocked on the door.

“Minseok? Are you okay?”

There was no answer, and after a second of deliberation Yixing pushed the door open.

“Minnie?”

Minseok was standing under the stream, head down, watching the water run off his nose and splash over his feet.

“I can still feel him,” he muttered.

“What?”

“I can’t get him off my skin.” Minseok closed his eyes and scraped his fingers over one of the purple hickeys that dotted his chest. “His hands are still on me.”

He gave a little hiccup, and Yixing realised he was crying, his tears lost in the water.

“Oh, sweetie,” he murmured. Pulling his sleeve up, he reached into the shower to turn the water off, then pulled Minseok out onto the bathmat and grabbed a clean towel from the stack in the corner to wrap around him. “Come on, let’s get some pyjamas on you and then there’s a cup of tea waiting in the kitchen that should still be hot.”

Minseok gave him a tiny, shaky smile, eyes still leaking to chase the gentle swipe of the towel over his face.

“You’ve gone all mother hen.”

“That’s because I have a little chickie that needs looking after.”

Minseok let out a little huff of amusement and wrinkled his nose. “Dear god, don’t ever call me that again.”

“Cheep cheep.”

Minseok laughed, his eyes crinkling into something more genuine. Yixing tweaked his nose and lifted the towel to rub over his hair.

“I can dry myself,” Minseok protested. He took the towel from Yixing and whirled it around his shoulders like a cape, then pushed Yixing towards the door. “Go drink your tea. Can I borrow some PJs?”

“I’ve laid them out on the bed for you.”

“Thanks, man.”

When Yixing glanced back in the doorway, Minseok was smiling at him. There was gratitude in that smile, Yixing thought, and relief. This was no longer an unbearable pain, shared between two.

-

They were still drinking their tea when Yixing’s phone started ringing in his pocket.

“Who the fuck is calling you this early in the morning?” Minseok frowned.

“No, it’s-” Yixing stretched out his leg to wriggle his phone out of his jeans. “It’s my alarm. Telling me to get up and get ready to leave for work.”

“Oh jeez, is it that time already?”

“Yeah, it’s six o’clock.” Yixing turned the alarm off and let his hand fall to the couch with a sigh.

Minseok eyed him warily. “Are you really going to go to the rink and work all day on no sleep?”

“Oh, I’m going to the rink,” Yixing said, setting his mug down on the end table and clambering to his feet. “To put up a sign saying we’re closed for the day. And then I’m coming back and sleeping for ten hours.”

“Sounds like a good plan.” Minseok pushed the rest of his tea away and began to draw his knees up to his chest before wincing and gently lowering them back down. “I’m gonna stay here and sit by the toilet until I stop feeling like I’m gonna be sick.”

Yixing pulled a face. “Nausea?”

“Eeeyep.” Minseok climbed off the couch and tottered towards the bathroom. “Just gonna lie down on your bathroom floor and try not to die for a hot sec.”

“Please don’t die,” Yixing said. “I quite like you alive.”

Minseok laughed, sharp and humourless. “I’m doing my best.”

He swayed into the bathroom and shut the door behind him. Yixing sighed, picked up his keys from the end table, and slipped out the front door.

-

When he returned an hour later, the apartment was quiet and still, lit only by the early sun. Yixing peered into the bathroom, but the lights were off in there too. He tiptoed into the bedroom and found Minseok curled up in the bed, his phone in his hand.

“I thought you’d already be asleep,” Yixing whispered.

Minseok shook his head. “Just looking up all the nasty details of what these pills are gonna do to me.”

“How bad is it?”

He shrugged. “Not as bad as the nurse made it sound. I’m just gonna feel depressed and tired. And pukey. And headachey. And there’s probably gonna be some diarrhea too. It’s gonna be a fun four weeks.”

Yixing grimaced. “I don’t envy you.” He kicked his jeans off and climbed into bed beside Minseok, who shuffled towards the wall to make space for him. “Do you wanna stay here until it gets better? I don’t mind.”

“Oh, dude, no.” Minseok shook his head. “No, it’ll be fine, I can sleep at my own house. You don’t need to put up with my grumpy ass for a whole month.”

“If you need someone to look after you-”

“I don’t.” Minseok put his phone down and looked Yixing in the eyes. “Really, Xingy, I’ll be fine. I just gotta get through this and I’ll be fine.”

“If you’re sure.” Yixing placed his hand over Minseok’s on the mattress. “You know you can always call me if you need anything. Day or night.”

“I know.” Minseok shuffled closer and reached over Yixing to place his phone on the bedside table. “Okay, time to sleep.” He wriggled down under the covers, then grabbed Yixing’s arm and pulled it over his shoulders.

“You okay?”

“Mhm.” Minseok nodded and snuggled his face into Yixing’s chest. Yixing wrapped his arms more tightly around him and held him close, one hand stroking gently up and down Minseok’s back.

Yixing had closed his eyes and was just on the edge of falling asleep when he felt the tremor run through Minseok’s body. He made a sleepy, questioning noise, peeling one eye open to look down at him, and when the next tremor was accompanied by a wet little breath it twigged that Minseok was crying again.

“Oh no,” Yixing mumbled, squeezing Minseok and pressing a kiss to the crown of his head. “Hey, it’s okay. You’ll be alright.”

“I’m scared,” Minseok whispered, tears and hot breath against Yixing’s collarbone. “I’m really scared, Xingy, what if it doesn’t work?”

“Shh,” Yixing combed his fingers through Minseok’s hair, “it’ll work. You started treatment really quickly, you’ll be fine.”

“But what if it doesn’t? What if I catch it anyway?”

“Then we’ll figure it out. You’re going to be okay, Minnie. One way or the other, you’ll be okay.”

“I’m scared,” Minseok repeated.

“I know you are.” Yixing rocked him sleepily back and forth. “I know you are. It’s okay.”

Minseok made a gasping, hiccuping noise and clutched at Yixing’s shirt. Yixing could feel Minseok’s face scrunching up against his neck as he tried to get himself under control, but finally the fear won out, and he gave a great shuddering sob as a fresh flood of tears washed over him.

“It’s okay,” Yixing murmured, stroking clumsy hands through Minseok’s hair and between his shoulders. “It’s okay, you’ll be alright.” He kept rocking him, repeating gentle words into Minseok’s ear until finally the tremors calmed and the tears ebbed and Minseok’s breathing became slow and even against his skin.

Yixing sighed and relaxed against him. He was exhausted, his hands struggling to stay awake enough to soothe the fear from Minseok’s head, and it was a relief to let them fall slack. It had been a hell of a night. He knew there would be so much to work through later, more reassurances to give, more damage control to do, and that when he awoke he would probably still be reeling, but right now there was nothing more important than pressing his face to Minseok’s hair, letting all the strength bleed out of his limbs, and falling asleep with Minseok in his arms. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to give a huge thank you to my friend and sensitivity reader swatibee, who put a careful eye and lots of heart into not just this story arc but the fic as a whole (the large part of it that was written pre-lockdown, at least). I look forward to the day when we can sit in Starbucks and read together again so that I can get your reactions firsthand.
> 
> A couple of notes on this chapter:
> 
> There are character errors in the information around treatment. These are deliberate. Deliberate also is the vagueness about the identity of "third place" - it didn't sit right with me to put a real idol into that character, so his name is "Lee" and we'll leave it at that. If you imagine a particular person I can't stop you, but please know I wrote him without anyone in mind.
> 
> (Minor spoiler:)  
> We will see this scene retold from a different perspective later in the story. There's more to it than this.


	9. Chapter 9

_\--JD--_

“So how’s the summer course load?”

Jongdae groaned. “God, don’t ask.”

Minseok laughed, shaking the hair out of his eyes as he flipped the vegetables in the frypan. “No different from the rest of the year, huh?”

“I thought it’d be easier cause I’m only taking one course? But it’s all condensed to fit into the summer term. All I’ve succeeded in doing is giving myself _fewer_ evenings to study with. I keep having to remind myself why I’m doing this: one less course to take next year.”

“It’ll be worth it,” Minseok said. “Future Jongdae will thank you for the relaxed course load he has come exam t-”

Minseok’s phone started cheeping an alarm at him. Jongdae’s immediate thought was that it was a timer for the pot simmering on the back of the stove, but then Minseok muttered a curse and yanked open the top drawer under the counter to pull out three small pill bottles.

Jongdae blinked in surprise, then craned his neck to look at the bottles as Minseok tipped one pill out of each and dropped the rest back into the drawer.

“What are those?” he asked, when Minseok had thrown the pills down his throat with a gulp from the glass of water on the bench.

“PEP,” Minseok said, turning around and wiping a drip off the bench with his finger.

“Pep?” Jongdae stared at him. Was Minseok taking uppers? He didn’t look particularly stimulated; on the contrary, he seemed pale and tired.

“Post-exposure prophylaxis.” Minseok articulated the words clearly, as if he’d had them sitting on his tongue just waiting to be said. He examined the droplet on the tip of his finger as if to confirm it really was just water before wiping it on his jeans.

Jongdae took a second to try and make sense of that. “Prophylaxis? To… stop you getting… pregnant?”

“To stop me getting AIDS.”

Jongdae choked on air.

“I’m sorry, _what?_ ”

“Pro tip, Jongdae,” Minseok muttered, still not looking at him. “If you’re ever fucking a stranger, make sure their condoms didn’t expire three years ago.”

“ _What did you do?_ ”

“Fucked a stranger whose condoms expired three years ago.” Minseok gave a dismissive sniff and shoved his hands into his pockets, looking up at Jongdae defiantly.

“And he gave you AIDS?”

“Tried to.” Minseok’s smirk had no humour in it. “Hell of a way to kill the afterglow.”

“I-” Jongdae struggled for words. “Christ. Are you okay?”

“Probably.” Minseok ran a glance along the countertop as if searching for more stray drops of water with which to avoid Jongdae’s eyes and jerked his head at the pill drawer. “Give me another twenty-two days of that shit and I’ll let you know.”

“… Fuck.”

Minseok glanced up at him with a little huff of surprise.

“I think that’s the first time I’ve ever heard you swear.”

“I- Minseok, I- _fuck_.”

Minseok laughed, nose wrinkling, eyes creasing almost shut. “I could get used to this.”

“Is that why you’ve been staying with Yixing all week?” Jongdae asked.

“Yeah.” Minseok turned around and lifted the lid off the pot to check its contents. “Yeah, I… did not react well to the pills. At all.”

He gave himself a little shake, and Jongdae grimaced in sympathy. He didn’t want to ask about the medication’s side effects; whatever they were, Minseok had clearly had the worst of them.

“So what, now you have to take those so you… won’t get… AIDS?”

“Yep.” Minseok popped the “p” and picked up a spoon to give the pot a stir. “I mean. HIV. There’s a difference between HIV and AIDS, one’s the virus and the other’s the condition- whatever, god willing I’ll never have to know or care about the minutiae of immunodeficiencies.”

“Yeah.” Jongdae shivered. “God. What- what was that like?”

“What, realising that this motherfucker might have just given me a life-changing and potentially lethal illness?” Minseok snorted and clanged the pot lid back down. “I screamed at him for about twenty minutes. Just about punched him in the face. I still think maybe I should have.”

“I would have,” Jongdae said. “I kind of want to now. Who is he? I’ll beat him up.”

Minseok laughed, turning around to lean back against the counter and eye Jongdae with amusement. “What’s gotten into you tonight? You’re swearing and making threats of bodily harm. This is not the mild-mannered second cousin I’m used to.” He tilted his head to the side, a mischievous sparkle in his eyes. “Did I activate protective Jongdae?”

_You activated can’t-stomach-the-thought-of-losing-any-more-family-members Jongdae_ , Jongdae thought. “Something like that.”

“You gonna turn into this f-bombing punk every time I get hurt?” Minseok grinned. “Careful, kiddo, you’ll turn me into a masochist.”

Jongdae shot him a glare, and Minseok turned away with a chuckle to turn the heat off under the frypan.

“Alright, I think this is done. How hungry are you?”

They sat down to eat, and Minseok directed the conversation back to Jongdae’s studies. They chatted amiably back and forth while they ate, but halfway through the meal Jongdae noticed that Minseok had slowed and was pushing his food around his plate more than actually eating it.

“You okay?”

Minseok nodded. “Yep.”

His voice was tight, lips pressed shut, and Jongdae reached out a concerned hand.

“I normally eat earlier in the evening,” Minseok explained. “And take the pills afterwards. So by the time I feel like I’m gonna be sick, there’s nothing really to bring up-” he clamped his mouth shut again, frozen and staring at his plate, then jumped up and bolted for the bathroom.

“Oh, sh-” Jongdae leapt up after him. “Are you okay?”

_Silly question_ , he thought, as Minseok slammed the bathroom door so hard that it bounced back ajar.

“Do you need anything?” Jongdae called, leaning against the wall of the alcove to peer through the gap.

“Close the door,” Minseok gasped, and Jongdae obediently slid it shut, wincing at the sound of retching from the other side.

He went back to the table and, after a second of indecision, began to clear the plates; he didn’t think Minseok would particularly want to eat anything more at the moment, and he’d lost his own appetite, so he cleaned up, keeping one ear on the bathroom in case Minseok should need help.

When Minseok emerged from the bathroom ten minutes later he was even paler than before, his face damp, a smear of toothpaste at the corner of his mouth.

“Oh, buddy,” Jongdae sighed. “Are you okay?”

Minseok cleared his throat.

“ _Side effects may subside as your body adjusts to the drugs_ ,” he quoted, hoarse and scratchy. “Bullshit. Only thing that’s subsiding is my will to live.”

Jongdae pulled a sympathetic face. “You’re having a rough time of it, aren’t you?”

“Oh, you know,” Minseok said as Jongdae took him by the elbow and led him back to his chair. “It’s just one of those weeks. At least I managed to throw up everything _except_ the pills, so. Small mercies.”

“Poor you. Make sure you take it easy until you feel better, right? Sleep in tomorrow, get lots of rest.”

“Sleep in?” Minseok snorted. “Yeah right. I’m getting on a plane first thing in the morning. I’ve got the Northeastern Championships to win.”

“ _Really?_ ” Jongdae stared at him. “Can you not give this one a miss? Take a week to look after yourself, you’ve been through hell.”

“Sorry, dude.” Minseok lifted a shaking hand and wiped his eyes, which were bloodshot and stung with tears. “Greatness waits for no antiretrovirals.”

Jongdae sighed and let his head fall forward to rest in his hand. “Really? In the state you’re in? You’re gonna wear yourself out.”

Minseok shrugged. “I can cope.”

“You’ll drive yourself to an early grave at this rate.”

“Drive myself to a sixth world gold, more like. You know before me no-one had ever won _World Xtreme_ more than three times? And never more than twice in a row. I’ve won that shit the last five consecutive years. I’m making history, dude, I can’t stop now.”

“At the expense of your health, though?”

“Hey,” Minseok said, pushing his chair back and getting up to wobble over to the kitchen counter. “It’s the price you gotta pay for being on top. You have to focus on the goal and not let anything else get in the way of that drive. Eyes on the prize. Besides, I’m not _that_ reckless. I look after myself. I drink lots of water. And coffee.”

“Coffee,” Jongdae snorted. “You know, sleep helps too.”

“Who says I don’t sleep?” Minseok turned around, his water glass refilled, and raised an eyebrow. “I’ve got a seven a.m. flight, I’m going to bed as soon as you leave.”

“Is that a hint?”

Minseok took a long sip of his water. “No, it’s a fact. You know you’re always welcome to stay as long as you like.”

“I’ll get going and let you sleep,” Jongdae said. He picked up his bag from the barstool at the counter and slung it over his back. “There’s a bus in twenty minutes, so. Good timing.”

Minseok followed him down the hallway and held the door for him.

“I’ll text you when I’m back from the Northeasterns.”

“Yeah. And let me know how… everything else is going.”

“Will do. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Minseok.”

Minseok mustered a grin as he waved goodbye and shut the door. Jongdae turned towards the road, hoisting his bag onto his shoulder, and was halfway down the driveway when he heard a muffled thud.

“Uh.” He turned around and, after a second of hesitation, hurried back to the house. “Minseok?”

There was no response from within, so Jongdae tapped on the door. “Minseok, are you okay?”

After a moment, the bolt drew back and the door cracked open.

“What?” Minseok peered through the gap.

“Did you just fall down the stairs?”

“ _No._ ” Minseok glared at him.

Jongdae raised an eyebrow.

“… Yes.”

“Let me in.” Jongdae pushed the door open and kicked off his shoes.

“Dude, no, I’m fine-”

“You just fell down the stairs, you’re _not fine_.”

“I didn’t fall _down the stairs_ ,” Minseok protested. “I just tripped and fell _on the stairs_. There’s a difference.”

“Don’t be pedantic.” Jongdae grasped Minseok under the elbow. “Come on, you idiot, let me help you.”

“I don’t need your help-”

“Yes you goddamn do,” Jongdae said. “Do you want to let me help you and still have a chance of going to your championship tomorrow, or do you want to be bloody-minded, fall and break something, and miss the rest of the season?”

Minseok glared at him for another second, then deflated.

“Fine,” he muttered, and let Jongdae take his weight as they started up the stairs. “Why do you have to meddle so much?”

“Because I care,” Jongdae said. “Even when you don’t want me to.”

Minseok rolled his eyes and stumbled over the next step, and Jongdae caught him with a solid hand on his chest.

“How are you hoping to compete this weekend if you can’t even walk up the stairs?” he wondered.

Minseok groaned and pushed Jongdae’s hand away. “Honestly, it’s just from throwing up so hard. Normally by the time the nausea hits I don’t have any actual food to bring up, so I just gag for a minute and then I’m done, but. That was. Violent. And I’m tired, so that doesn’t help.”

They paused on the landing, and Jongdae pressed a hand to Minseok’s forehead to gauge his temperature.

“You don’t feel hot,” he muttered.

“No, I don’t think I’m sick,” Minseok said. “Y’know, aside from the obvious. Just really, really tired.”

“If you’re not feeling okay in the morning, _please_ don’t go to the competition,” Jongdae begged. “Please, it’s better for you to miss it than to burn out while you’re there.”

Minseok waved him away. “Don’t worry,” he said, “if I can’t get out of bed in the morning then I’ll call you and you can come give me a sponge bath.”

“Are you capable of taking anything seriously?”

“Nope.” Minseok grinned as they reached the upper floor. “Thanks, dude. I’m okay from here.”

Jongdae followed him into the bedroom anyway, lingering at the edge of the room while Minseok tottered around grabbing his pyjamas.

“You’re sure you’re alright?” Jongdae prodded. “I’m worried.”

“Seriously,” Minseok assured him. “My legs just wouldn’t cooperate with the stairs. A good night’s sleep and I’ll be absolutely fine. And I’ll make sure to take my pills _after_ breakfast tomorrow morning.”

Jongdae nodded, mollified, and was just turning to leave when one of the photos on top of Minseok’s dresser caught his eye. He stepped closer and took the frame carefully down to get a look at it.

“Hey…” he turned to Minseok. “What’s this?”

“Hm?” Minseok peered over. “Oh. Your mom gave me a copy.”

Jongdae looked down at the photo again, frowning as he tried to locate it in time. Himself and Minseok sitting side by side on the couch, Minseok’s arm around Jongdae’s shoulders, both of them looking at the camera. Jongdae eyed the amount of gel in his hair and cringed. How had he ever managed to convince himself that that looked cool?

It was the hair gel that placed it, as well as the old glasses. He must have been about sixteen or seventeen here - in fact, this had probably been taken on his seventeenth birthday. He thought he remembered his mother taking a photo on her ancient film camera that evening, but he’d never seen it. This must be it.

“How long have you had this?” he murmured.

“Oh jeez, I dunno. What year was it taken? It was that Christmas, your mom gave it to me.”

“Wow.” Jongdae stared at the photo. How had he never seen it? It wasn’t like he hadn’t been in Minseok’s room before. He’d just never noticed it.

As he replaced the photo on the dresser, he glanced at the picture in the other frame. This was Minseok, younger than Jongdae had ever known him, standing next to Yixing. Their arms were linked, and they were both grinning from ear to ear. There didn’t seem to be anything else special in the picture; the background looked like it might have been taken on the industrial edge over the other side of the city. Clearly it was the people, not the place, that were important here.

Jongdae set the two photo frames side-by-side. There was a tingle of significance at that, the fact that Minseok had on his dresser pictures of himself with two people, just two, and Jongdae was one of them. And the fact that the other was Yixing - Yixing, the most important person in Minseok’s life - Jongdae had a mind-boggling moment of possibility. Was he on a similar level of importance, as far as Minseok was concerned?

“Goodnight,” Minseok said. Jongdae turned around and saw he was already tucked into bed, the covers pulled around his shoulders and the faces of two of his teddy bears peeking out from where they were clutched to his chest.

“Oh! Sorry, I spaced out. Goodnight.” Jongdae smiled and gave him a little wave.

“Lock the door behind you,” Minseok said.

“Will do.” Jongdae turned the light out and paused in the doorway to take one last look at Minseok snuggling down into his pillow. With a smile, he tiptoed down the stairs, pulled his shoes on, and let himself out, snipping the bolt so that the door locked behind him.

He checked his watch as he headed down the driveway. The bus he’d been meaning to catch was already long gone, but there was another in half an hour, and Jongdae didn’t mind the wait. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and flicked open his camera to scroll through the photos as he perched on the bus stop bench. He was sure there were still a few pictures of Minseok in there somewhere from the time he stole Jongdae’s phone and took a bunch of selfies.

He scrolled through the pictures until he found Minseok’s selfie spree, then flipped slowly through them. There, that one was nice: Minseok with his cheeks puffed out, his red hair teased out around his head, fingers held in a V next to his eye. Jongdae considered the photo, then set it as his phone background.

Navigating back to the home screen, Jongdae admired it for a moment. He’d never had anything other than the system default background before, but this was nice. Minseok had Jongdae on his dresser, and Jongdae had Minseok on his phone.

Jongdae smiled at the screen for another minute, until it dimmed and then went dark. Then he slid it back into his pocket and relaxed back to wait for the bus. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: puts something into FLF as a scene-setting throwaway mention  
> also me: proceeds to create an entire backstory and emotional significance for that item
> 
> the photos, man. the _photos._


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has similar content warnings to the last two.

_\--YX--_

Yixing’s phone chirped a cheerful tune at him from the shelf, and he snatched it up to open the message.

_From: Minseokkie_ _  
_ _10 points in it_

Accompanying the text was a picture of Minseok’s hand holding a gold medal.

“Holy shit,” Yixing breathed. He took a second to restart his heart, then sent a text back.

_To: Minseokkie_ _  
_ _I’m just glad you’re still alive_

_From: Minseokkie_ _  
_ _don’t b stupid i feel fine_

_From: Minseokkie_ _  
_ _i think i’m over the shit part now. this morning was fine, and last night 2._

_From: Minseokkie_ _  
_ _jd wouldn’t stop txting me yesterday tho istg that kids gonna give himself grey hairs_

Yixing sighed. Jongdae was just saying what they were all thinking, but Yixing didn’t tell Minseok that.

_To: Minseokkie_ _  
_ _Well someone has to make sure you look after yourself_

_From: Minseokkie_ _  
_ _i look after myself just fine!!! >:(_

_To: Minseokkie_ _  
_ _Yes dear._

Minseok sent back a string of angry faces, and then, after a minute’s interlude, a single heart. Yixing rolled his eyes and shoved his phone back onto the shelf with a barely restrained grin.

Absurd. _Absurd,_ this fondness that sat warm in his chest. Absurd that he still felt it so strongly after this many years. 

He picked up his phone again.

_To: Minseokkie_ _  
_ _Do you need a lift from the airport?_

_From: Minseokkie_ _  
_ _no thx i’ve got my bike parked there_

_To: Minseokkie_ _  
_ _Mkay. You ride safe, alright?_

_From: Minseokkie_ _  
_ _yes dear_

Yixing laughed and shook his head. _Absurd_.

He jumped as Byun Baekhyun skidded up and slammed into the counter.

“Jesus, Baek,” Yixing gasped, clapping a hand over his heart. “How many times have I told you? Skating _in_ the rink, walking _out_ of it. You’re gonna kill someone zooming around like that.”

“Sorry-y-y,” Baekhyun grinned. “Can I get a soda?”

“Sure.” Yixing turned around, grabbed an orange can from the fridge and slid it across the counter towards him, then held out his hand for his coins. He dropped them into the register and gave Baekhyun his change.

“So how’s your summer going?”

“Good,” Baekhyun said, snapping open the can and slurping at the foam that bubbled up. “Went to _East_ last week.”

“Oh yeah, I saw Kris and Chanyeol competed.”

“Yeah, and came in the bottom three.” Baekhyun shook his head. “Good thing it’s impossible to embarrass those two.”

“Someone has to come last,” Yixing shrugged. “Competitions are all good experience, it doesn’t matter if you place or not.”

“Yeah, but they were _bad_.”

Yixing raised his eyebrows. “I thought they were fine.”

“You were there?”

“No, but I watched the livestream. My friend was competing.”

“Then you saw they skated right after that Kim Minseok guy.”

Yixing almost choked on a laugh, but managed to hold it in. “Oh yeah, that guy.”

“He makes literally everyone else look like a toddler on wheels,” Baekhyun said. “It’s unfair. He wipes the floor with all the other skaters and takes home the gold medal every time. I mean, good for him, but they could at least put him on last so that no-one has to shit their pants trying to follow that act.” He took a gulp of his soda and sighed. “Anyway. I guess I have that to look forward to when I compete next year. How did your friend do?”

_He wiped the floor with all the other skaters and took home the gold medal_ , Yixing thought. “He did pretty well.”

“Yeah? Good for him,” Baekhyun nodded. “Hope he’s not too bummed about being absolutely slaughtered by Kim Minseok.”

Yixing just gave a non-committal hum.

“Summer’s flying by, huh?” Baekhyun said. “I guess I gotta start looking for a job soon.”

Yixing looked at him in surprise. “You want a job? Why not wait until you finish school?”

“I already finished school,” Baekhyun said. “I’m done, dude. I’m a free man.”

There was a shout of Baekhyun’s name from the bleachers over the other side of the rink, and he turned and skated away with barely a glance over his shoulder to say goodbye. Yixing frowned after him. How could Baekhyun be done with school already? Yixing could have sworn he was only sixteen. Wasn’t he? Yes, he’d been complaining about not being able to compete at _East_ , which meant he couldn’t be seventeen yet. Then how was he already finished high school?

Maybe Baekhyun had dropped out of high school. Or maybe he was one of those genius students who did accelerated programmes and finished a year early? Yixing laughed and shook his head. No way. Not Loud Mouth Byun. He must have just dropped out. Yixing shrugged to himself and picked up his phone to change the music playing over the loudspeakers. 

_\--JD--_

_From: Kim Minseok_ _  
_ _day off 2moro. come hang?_

Jongdae refreshed the text message on his phone as he banged on the door for the third time. He was sure he’d heard the buzzer sound inside the house the first five times he’d pressed it, but maybe the damn thing was broken and he’d been imagining it.

_To: Kim Minseok_ _  
_ _Are you home?_

_To: Kim Minseok_ _  
_ _I’m standing outside your house._

_To: Kim Minseok_ _  
_ _Hello?_

Jongdae sighed and hung his head. Perhaps Minseok was in the bathroom without his phone, or hungover and fast asleep. 

Should he go home? No, Jongdae decided, he’d come all this way, and he didn’t want to just turn around and catch the next bus home only for Minseok to wake up and call him back. He hesitated, unsure, and then made up his mind. He’d go for a walk around the block. A meander through the development should give Minseok ample time to come around.

Jongdae set off down the drive, and after a second of consideration turned right. He’d only ever walked from the bus stop outside the gates of the development to Minseok’s house, and that wasn’t very far. He’d never gone past Minseok’s street. Now he did.

After about ten minutes of wandering through the quiet streets, he heard a faint sound, growing clearer with every step. He paused at a cross street, then turned the corner, following that sound until he found the source: a playground crawling with Saturday morning children, and next to it a basketball court where a group of young teenagers were playing basketball.

Wait.

Jongdae squinted at one of the smaller teens. He was too heavily tattooed to be a child. Jongdae took off his glasses and pulled the cleaning cloth out of his pocket to wipe them off, then slid them back on and took another look.

Minseok snatched the ball from a lanky tween and shot it at the hoop, sinking it neatly and earning himself a round of high fives from the kids on his team.

“Not fair!” the tween yelled, voice squeaking and breaking with indignation, “you’re not allowed to jump that high!”

“He’s gotta jump that high to get the ball over you!” another kid countered.

Minseok did a little spin that just screamed “count the fucks I give,” then took the ball and passed it to the lanky tween.

“Let’s see what you’ve got then, come on.”

Jongdae stepped under the shade of a tree to watch as the tween tried and failed to get the ball past Minseok. It wasn’t a fair fight, Jongdae thought - Minseok was twice the kid’s age and had a good ten years of sporting experience on him.

The tween seemed to have the same thought as Minseok neatly smacked his shot out of the air.

“It’s no fun playing against you, you’re too good.”

“One hand!” yelled one of the other kids from the edge of the court.

Minseok grinned and held up both his hands towards Lanky.

“Left,” Lanky decided, and Minseok stuck his right hand behind his back.

“More of a fair game now?”

Lanky nodded, then dove to the side to try and get the ball past Minseok’s unusable side. Minseok pivoted enough to drive his left shoulder into Lanky’s way, and the kid stumbled trying to dodge him. Minseok scooped the ball out of the air, fumbled it into his chest, then took off down the court, dribbling the ball with Lanky in hot pursuit.

“No you don’t!” Lanky cried, snatching the ball as Minseok tried to line up a shot one-handed. He charged away back down the court, and Minseok spun on a dime to follow him.

“Hey!” one of the girls called, “You’re double dribbling, that’s against the rules!”

Lanky stopped, clearly obeying some unspoken penalty rule, and lined up his shot. He was still a third of the way down the court, but that didn’t seem to bother him. He took the shot just as Minseok jumped in front of him, grabbing for the ball and missing it by an inch.

Lanky’s shot hit the board, bounced off the rim, and rolled around for an agonising second before finally dropping through.

“Woah!” one of the kids called from their perch on the low concrete wall. “You got one past Minseok!”

“Good job, kiddo,” Minseok grinned, offering Lanky a high five that turned into a one-armed hug.

“Excuse me,” one of the girls called, and Jongdae realised with a jolt that she was leaning over the wall to talk to him, “this playground is for children. Are you a pedophile?”

Jongdae opened his mouth, cheeks flushing red with panic, and was still trying to muster an explanation when Minseok laughed.

“Oh, hey, Jongdae. This is my second cousin Jongdae, everyone.”

“Is he a pedophile?” the girl squinted, still not taking her eyes off Jongdae.

“No,” Minseok chuckled, “but good job on that vigilance.” He leaned over the wall and offered Jongdae a sweaty bro-hug, precisely no part of which was appealing but which Jongdae awkwardly accepted anyway for the sake of his own street cred in front of a bunch of tweenagers who were all cooler at the age of twelve than Jongdae would ever be in his life.

“What are you doing here?” Minseok asked, hoisting himself up onto the wall to perch in front of Jongdae.

“Looking for you.”

“Oh, shit, right!” Minseok leaned back over the wall to grab his hoodie from the ground and fished his phone out of the pocket of it. “My bad, dude, the time got away from me. I guess I was having too much fun.”

Jongdae nodded at the court, where the tweens were now arguing over whether Lanky, having just proven himself a legend with that impressive shot, was subject to the same one-hand rule as Minseok.

“Is this what you do on your days off?”

“If my day off falls on a sunny Saturday like this,” Minseok said. “This is where the neighbourhood kids hang out. I’m the bad influence their parents warned them about.” He gave Jongdae a wicked grin, made even more devious by the full sleeves of ink on display under his basketball singlet.

“You’re feeling better this week,” Jongdae observed.

Minseok hushed him, glancing back over his shoulder to make sure none of the kids were eavesdropping, then leaned in to speak confidentially.

“Yeah,” he said, “I think that was the last of the worst of it, when you were over. Now I just feel slightly vomitous for about half an hour after I take the pills. Way more manageable. Not the same hell as it was the first week.”

“You still managed to win your championship,” Jongdae observed, “even with that hell.”

“Oh god,” Minseok closed his eyes as if reliving the nerves, “I genuinely thought he was gonna beat me, it came down to a difference of ten points. Nabbed it by _that much_.”

“Good job,” Jongdae said, patting him on the shoulder. “So, do you want me to leave you alone so you can play with your army of minions?”

Minseok laughed. “Nah, I think we’re done here.” He swivelled around to hop off the low wall and waved to the kids. “Bye, you lot! Have fun, don’t maul each other!”

A few voices of protest rose up out of the chorus of groans.

“But you haven’t played with us for _ages!_ ”

“Sorry, honey,” Minseok said, taking the girl’s two braids and gently tying them under her chin like a bonnet ribbon. “I have boring adult stuff to do with my second cousin. I’ll come play with you next time I have a day off.”

“When will that be?” she pouted.

“Not sure.” Minseok let go of her braids, and they flopped back onto her shoulders. “But you can bet I’ll be here.”

She glowered for another moment, then nodded. “Okay.”

“Okay,” Minseok agreed, then flicked one of her braids up to tickle her chin. She giggled and pushed him away.

“Bye, Minseok,” Lanky said.

“Bye, Taemin!” Minseok waved to the crowd of tweens and jogged backwards towards the gate. Instead of opening it, though, he vaulted the low wall, feet rising above his head with the strength of his jump in the way only a skater could show off.

“Let’s go,” he said to Jongdae, and threw a last wave back to the kids as the two of them headed for the corner.

“You’re a real big brother, aren’t you?” Jongdae remarked.

Minseok snorted. “More like the weird cousin. Most of the parents don’t like me, and the ones that do, it’s for the entirely wrong reasons.”

Jongdae cut a glance sideways at Minseok, and hazarded a guess that those reasons were six or seven figures long.

“Are you causing rifts in the community?” he said, only half teasing.

“You jest, but I have had parents _politely_ ask me to cover up the ink around their impressionable offspring. And the hair.” Minseok flicked a finger at a stray tendril of blue hair sticking out from under his snapback. It wasn’t often Jongdae saw Minseok without his beanie, but this summer style suited him, the sleeveless basketball shirt and dark shorts.

“Do they really think you’re making a bad impression on the kids?”

“Fuck, don’t ask me. Fuckin’ rich people.” Minseok scowled. “I cover up the swearing, what more do they want?”

Jongdae glanced down, following Minseok’s pointing finger to the giant plaster on his calf. Belatedly, he realised it was covering Minseok’s scratcher, the wonky _GET FUCKED_ he got in a friend’s brother’s bedroom when he was sixteen.

“God knows what they’d do if they found out I was a dirty homo,” Minseok muttered. “ _Get that nasty man away from our children before he gives them AIDS!_ ”

The high-pitched bitterness in Minseok’s voice was barely disguised as irony, and Jongdae felt a moment of horror at the thought of the pills not working, of Minseok actually ending up HIV-positive and living the rest of his life with those accusations following him around in more than a hypothetical sense.

“Jeez,” he muttered. “I’m sorry, Minseok, that’s… I’m really sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Minseok said, shoving his hands into his pockets with a dismissive sniff. “I don’t need pity, I couldn’t give less of a fuck what they think. I just can’t wait for the day when their kids grow up infinitely less prejudiced than the rest of their gross family and the parents have to wonder who put these nasty progressive ideas in their heads.”

Jongdae laughed. “Infiltrating the minds of the most vulnerable, huh?”

“Precisely.” Minseok shot him a grin as they turned onto his street and began the short walk up the driveway. “You want coffee?”

“Please,” Jongdae nodded.

“As long as you don’t mind it being made by my grubby homo hands.”

Jongdae snorted and caught Minseok’s hand as it swung past him.

“Hm.” He turned it over, eyeing the fingers, examining the palm. “Sweaty, yes. Dirty, yes. In need of a wash before going anywhere near a kitchen, definitely. Grubby?” He gave Minseok’s palm a tickle and dropped it back to his side. “Absolutely not.”

Minseok laughed and shoved him away, but when Jongdae glanced over the pucker was gone from between his eyebrows and his smile sat easier on his face.

_\--YX--_

It was after eight p.m., and Yixing was just closing up in the office when he heard the roar of an engine. His head snapped up and he just about launched himself over the counter to lean out and look towards the door. Minseok’s bike was unmistakable, even in the rumble of trucks that populated the industrial edge.

Yixing waited, holding his breath until Minseok slipped through the door and closed it behind him with a scrape of metal. Yixing squinted to try and identify any emotion on Minseok’s face as he turned around - relief? Anguish? Resignation? - but his expression was blank as he walked the width of the rink to stand in front of Yixing at the counter.

“I finished the pills last night,” he said.

Yixing nodded. He’d been counting the days, twenty-eight of them spent in nail-biting suspense, waiting for this moment.

“Just had my doctor’s appointment,” Minseok continued.

Yixing nodded again.

“And?”

Minseok took a breath.

“Negative.”

“ _Oh, thank god_.” Yixing slumped down in his seat and smacked both hands over his eyes as all the tension of the last month welled up behind them. “Oh, Jesus, Minseok, I’m-”

“Oh my god, why are you crying?” Minseok reached over the counter to pat Yixing’s head as he sobbed into his palms. “I’m fine!”

“I _know_ , that’s why I’m- I’m just so relieved, oh my god, I’m so glad you’re okay.”

“Yeah, me too.” Minseok combed his fingers through the short hair at the back of Yixing’s head. “I have to take another test in a month, and another later in the year, to make sure I really am negative. But it looks like it worked. No HIV for me.”

Yixing gave a shuddering sigh of gratitude and wiped at his eyes. “You have no idea how relieved I am right now.”

“Not half as relieved as me.” Minseok grinned. “This whole month it’s been like, ‘okay, these pills suck, but you know what’d suck even more? Getting AIDS.’ Literally the only way I could force them down my throat the first week or two.”

“Ugh, I’m so sorry you’ve had to go through that,” Yixing said. “If I ever see that guy I’m gonna punch him in the face.”

Minseok laughed. “I’m not sure if I would punch him or just fucking ignore him. On the one hand, I would really love to cause him bodily harm… but on the other hand, is he worth my time?”

“He’s worth _my_ time,” Yixing snarled. “What an absolute _asshole_. Do you think he did it deliberately?”

Minseok shook his head. “I honestly don’t know. For a minute there I thought he was trying to sabotage me to knock me off the top spot, but when I was screaming at him he seemed more surprised than vindictive. I think maybe he was just _that_ inconsiderate that he didn’t even think about the consequences of not telling me.”

“What. An. Asshole.”

“Yeah, pretty much.” Minseok shrugged. “Next!”

“So what happens now?” Yixing asked. “You take a couple more tests to make sure it worked. And that’s it?”

“I mean, yeah,” Minseok said. He stepped back from the counter as Yixing shut the office door behind him and pulled the roller down over the counter window. “But the doctor also recommended I start taking PrEP.”

“What’s that?”

“ _Pre_ -exposure prophylaxis,” Minseok said. “ _Recommended for individuals who are likely to be exposed to HIV._ It’s like birth control, but for AIDS!”

His tone was jokey, but Yixing heard something else lying beneath it.

“So it’s just more of what you’ve been taking? Is it gonna make you that sick all the time?”

“No, no,” Minseok said. “It’s just one of the pills, and I only have to take it once a day. It’s not gonna suck _nearly_ as much. I’m just slightly more bothered by the attitude than anything.”

“Which attitude?”

Minseok paused, seeming to count his words as Yixing picked up his bag and slung it over his shoulder.

“The idea that because I’m gay I’m going to be exposed to HIV as a matter of course, and that by not taking PrEP this whole time I was deliberately putting myself in danger. There was this… just this feeling I got from the doctor, that this was _my_ fault, like I wasn’t careful enough. Whereas in actual fact, I was about as careful as I could be, short of ripping the damn condom out of his hand and checking it myself. It was _his_ fault, not mine.”

“Well that’s bullshit,” Yixing frowned. “What the hell kind of attitude is that? ‘Oh, some rapey dude tried to give you HIV, but it’s totally your fault for not having seen this coming, because you’re gay and therefore everyone you sleep with probably has AIDS!’ Give me a break.”

“I had to physically bite my tongue to stop myself snapping at her,” Minseok said.

“I can imagine.”

“I did find out one interesting piece of information though,” he added, “not that it’s any damn good to me at this point.”

“Yeah? What’s that?”

“Internal exams are _not_ a routine part of emergency care following possible exposure to HIV.”

It took Yixing a second to find the significance of that. Then his jaw dropped.

“At the hospital-”

“They didn’t need to get all up inside me at all,” Minseok said. “They didn’t need to check for bleeding. That had _nothing_ to do with whether I could take PEP.”

“Holy shit,” Yixing breathed.

“I’m gonna chalk that one up to ignorance. Or just gross incompetence.”

“You think so?”

Minseok nodded, sharp and tight. “It’s better than the alternative.”

The look on his face told Yixing he hadn’t quite managed to dismiss that alternative possibility: that the invasive examination had been a punishment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that concludes this particular arc.
> 
> Sorry for leaving you all in suspense for almost two months. While proofreading I noticed I'd written a couple of scenes that directly contradicted each other, so I had to pull those chapters apart and rework them to make it all match up. I figured it was best to pause on updating until I knew how much I was going to have to change. But it's fixed now! Regular updates will resume.
> 
> Thank you for reading. Your comments mean the world to me.
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/jangjaeyul)


	11. Chapter 11

_\--JD--_

Jongdae stepped out of the agency with a frown on his face that he couldn’t quite pin on either the bright sunlight or the frustratingly futile attempt to wrangle an interview. Arranging internships was _hard_. He’d come all the way to the industrial edge, navigating unfamiliar roads and unwilling bus schedules, and all he’d ended up doing was talking to a receptionist who had no idea who he was or what he could possibly want from them.

Jongdae groaned and rubbed at his temples. He was beginning to develop a stress headache, and the school year hadn’t even started yet.

“Oi, Jongdae!”

Jongdae’s head snapped up, looking wildly around the street. Who the hell could possibly know him out on the industrial edge?

He squinted across the road as a waving hand caught his eye, and sighed in understanding. Of course. Minseok.

Jongdae held up a finger, then jogged down to the crosswalk and crossed the empty street at the lights. As he ran back up the other side towards Minseok he wondered what had brought him out to this part of town. He knew Minseok’s rink was somewhere around here, but as far as he knew it was in the warehouse district, nowhere near this street with its dusty offices and sparsely-cliented cafes.

“What’s up, dude?” Minseok grinned, swinging his motorcycle helmet around his hand as he saluted Jongdae hello. “Didn’t expect to see you out this way.”

“Internship hunting,” Jongdae explained. “What about you?”

Minseok indicated the sign on the building behind him: _Street Inc._

“What’s this?”

“This is my favourite den of iniquity,” he said, eyebrows pointedly raised. “Would you care to join me?”

Jongdae swallowed nervously. “Is it a brothel?”

“What?” Minseok burst out laughing. “No! That’s the _other_ side of town. No, c’mon, I’ll show you.”

He grabbed Jongdae by the wrist and dragged him through the door, setting off an electronic chime towards the back of the shop.

“Tao, my dude!”

The man at the counter looked up, surprised and welcoming.

“Minnie!” He dropped his phone and leaned over the counter to smack a hug into Minseok’s back. “I don’t have an appointment with you today, do I?”

“Nah, nah,” Minseok shook his head. “Sehun.”

“Oh, oh, right- _oooh_ ,” Tao gave him a saucy look. “What are we doing today?”

In answer, Minseok stuck out his tongue and made a gesture at his chest that seemed to Jongdae unnecessarily sexual. Tao somehow seemed to derive some meaning from it other than that Minseok wanted someone to tweak his nipples.

“ _Nice._ ”

“This is my second cousin Jongdae,” Minseok said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at Jongdae. “Just ran into him outside and thought I should bring him in on the fun.”

“Welcome, second cousin Jongdae.” Tao held out a hand. “Huang Zitao.”

“Pleased to meet you.” Jongdae shook Tao’s hand, resisting the urge to take a better look around at the merchandise on display. He’d surmised that this place was indeed not a brothel, but he couldn’t quite work out what it _was_. Everything smelled like antiseptic, a sting at the back of his nose reminiscent of scraped knees and superhero bandaids.

“Sehun!” Tao turned and yelled over his shoulder. “Minseok’s here!”

A door creaked open somewhere behind the scenes, and another young man sauntered around the corner. This guy was a couple of years younger than Tao, Jongdae thought, closer to Minseok’s age. He also had green hair - not the deep bottle green that Minseok’s sometimes went, but something nearer the colour of a brussel sprout.

“Hey, Broccoli Head!” Minseok said. “How you doing, my vegetable friend?”

“Is that any way to talk to the man who’s about to wield a sharp instrument around your naked body?” Sehun shot back.

“What is this place?” Jongdae whispered.

None of the others seemed to hear him. Tao had turned away and was tapping at the computer, a pout of concentration edging into his chin. Sehun was pulling a form from a stack of papers and noting some details on it before handing it to Minseok to fill and sign.

“I’ve got a client coming in five minutes,” Tao muttered. “Sehun, will you be able to keep an ear on the bell while I’m working on her?”

“Should be,” Sehun said. “Can’t promise I’ll be able to drop everything and run out if someone comes in though.”

“We need an assistant,” Tao sighed.

Sehun grunted in agreement.

“Alrighty.” Minseok signed his name with a scribble and handed the paper back to Sehun. “That look right to you?”

Sehun ran his eye down the column of tick boxes, then nodded. “Looks good! C’mon back.” He glanced up at Jongdae. “Is your friend coming in with you?”

“Yep.” Minseok jerked his head after Sehun, and Jongdae scuttled into the back room behind them.

It looked like a doctor’s office, except more heavily decorated. The walls were hung with hand-drawn pictures, some of them framed, others tacked to the wall and fluttering in the breeze as Sehun pushed the door shut behind them.

“Okay, hop on up,” he said to Minseok, and Minseok jumped up to sit on the paper-covered bench in the middle of the tiny room. “You can grab that seat there if you want, dude,” he added in Jongdae’s direction.

Jongdae looked around and saw a little rolling stool tucked under the desk in the corner of the room. He slid it out and sat down, watching Sehun and Minseok to try and gauge what might be about to happen.

Whatever he was expecting, it wasn’t this.

Minseok whipped his T-shirt off over his head and ducked his chin to look down at his chest.

“So,” Sehun said, as if Minseok were not sitting half-naked in front of him and peering at his own nipples, “just like this?” He pinched one of Minseok’s nipples between his two index fingers.

Minseok nodded. “Yeah, just whatever you think looks good.”

Sehun tore open two small alcohol swabs and wiped Minseok’s nipples. Uncapping a felt-tip marker, he squinted at Minseok’s right nipple for a moment before making a small dot on either side of it. He then turned and did the same to the left nipple, stepped back to scrutinise all four dots for a second, adjusted one of the left ones, and nodded towards the mirror.

“What do you think of that?”

Minseok hopped off the bench and turned side to side in front of the mirror.

“Looks great!”

“Awesome.” Sehun nodded in confirmation and turned to drop the pen on the desk beside Jongdae. He pulled open one of the drawers stacked on the desk and pulled out a little packet, then rummaged through the next one for a longer plastic package.

Jongdae glanced at Minseok and met his eyes. Minseok smiled excitedly, and Jongdae tried to return it even though he still had absolutely no idea what was happening.

Sehun, having snapped on a pair of latex gloves, pulled a tiny rolling table from under the desk and laid a paper towel on it, ripped open the two packets and tipped their contents out onto it, then picked up a bottle and squirted it over everything. Jongdae tried to crane his neck to see what was on the paper towel; everything was small and silver, and that one from the longer package looked like a needle…

“Alright, lie down.”

As Sehun picked up the needle and sat down on his stool next to Minseok, Jongdae identified the other object as a similar kind of silver stud to the one Minseok wore through his lip. In the next half a second, as Sehun leaned over Minseok, it finally clicked what this place was, and what was therefore about to happen.

“Breathe in… and out… and in… and out…”

Sehun’s hands moved together.

“ _Hnnnngggg-_ ”

“Oh Jesus,” Jongdae whispered. From where he was sitting, as Sehun sat back, he could see the long silver needle sticking straight through Minseok’s right nipple, clean through from one side to the other, and Minseok was trying to restrain the heaving of his chest, his face crumpled in pain, and Jongdae’s head was spinning.

“Ah, what the _fuck_ , that hurts worse than the _lip_ -”

“We’re almost done,” Sehun murmured, “the worst part’s over.”

“No it’s not, you _liar_.” Minseok gave a gasping laugh, then gritted his teeth and groaned as Sehun bent over him again. “ _Hhhggggg fuck you Oh Sehun-_ ”

“All done.” Sehun straightened up and dropped the needle into a yellow bin affixed to the wall. “Do you need a minute?”

Jongdae couldn’t tear his eyes away from the little silver bar stuck through Minseok’s nipple, the tiny balls on either side, the gathering redness and oh god, that was blood-

“Fuck, I don’t know if I want the other one,” Minseok groaned, “it feels like I’ve been punched in the tit.”

Jongdae felt like _he_ had been punched in the throat. His vision was starting to speckle at the edges.

“Yeah, it’s not the most fun to get done,” Sehun said. “Let me just clean this up here and then you can decide how you feel.”

He picked up a cotton pad and wiped gently around Minseok’s nipple. When he took the pad away there was a giant red patch in the middle of it.

Jongdae felt the air move through his throat, but his ears were full of fuzz and he couldn’t quite hear his own moan as his vision narrowed down to a point, bright and speckly.

He didn’t quite pass out, but somehow when the colour cleared from his eyes he was sitting on the floor instead of the stool.

“Woah.” Sehun turned around, a fresh cotton wipe in his hand. “Dude, you okay?”

Minseok propped himself up on his elbows. “Did you just fuckin’ pass out?”

Jongdae put a hand to his head to hold it in place. “Holy _shit_ that’s a lot of blood.”

Sehun glanced at the little rolling table. “Really, man?”

Jongdae followed his glance, saw the cotton wipe with its giant streak of blood sitting right there in front of his face, and this time he _did_ pass out.

-

“Come on, buddy, come back to us.”

Footsteps, growing louder in the dark. “What’s going on?”

“Minseok’s friend passed out.”

“Oh no, not second cousin Jongdae.”

“Is that his name? Can you grab us a bottle of water?”

“Sure.” More footsteps, receding this time.

“Jongdae.” A hand on his knee, rubbing in a gentle circle. “You with us?”

Jongdae shook his head until the darkness turned to sparkles turned to a clear picture.

“There you are.”

Minseok was crouched in front of him, still shirtless and with that silver bar through his nipple - Jongdae groaned and held up a hand to block the sight.

“Oops, sorry.” Minseok covered his chest with one hand, the other still soothing circles into Jongdae’s knee. “Better now?”

Jongdae took a deep breath and nodded. The world was still spinning a little, but it didn’t seem at risk of going dark anymore.

The footsteps returned, and Tao appeared in the doorway, a bottle of water in his hand.

“You okay?” He held out the bottle to Jongdae, who took it with a shaking hand and tried fruitlessly to uncap it for a moment before Sehun took it and opened it for him.

“Yeah,” Jongdae said. “Yeah, I think so, I just- hoo, that was a lot of blood.”

Sehun raised an eyebrow. “I’m not even gonna tell you what _I_ would call a lot of blood.”

“I learn something new about you every day,” Minseok said. “I didn’t know you had a thing about blood.”

“I didn’t know you had a thing for sticking holes in your chest,” Jongdae gasped. Just the thought of it was enough to send his head spinning again.

Minseok laughed. “What, this fella?” He tapped a finger next to his nipple, but even that careful inch of space seemed to be too little, because he cringed and curled forward with a hiss of regret.

“ _Don’t_ ,” Jongdae groaned, “oh god, why didn’t you warn me?”

“I… didn’t I?” Minseok tilted his head to the side. “Huh. I guess I didn’t, really. My bad, man. Well, it’s over now, we’re all done, so you can stop passing out.”

“Don’t want the other one?” Sehun asked.

Minseok shook his head. “Nah, I think Jongdae would probably puke.”

“Uh huh.” Sehun wrangled a smirk back into line. “How thoughtful of you.”

“Shut up,” Minseok said. “I can handle the pain.”

“Can you now.”

Minseok glared at him and yanked his T-shirt on over his head. He carefully navigated his arms through the sleeves, then eased the shirt down over his chest.

“Ugh, is this gonna bleed on me?”

“Shouldn’t do,” Sehun said. “Just don’t smack yourself in the chest.”

Minseok frowned down at his shirt as if unconvinced, then shrugged and picked up his jacket and helmet from the chair in the far corner of the room.

“Do you want me to pay for the other stud as well?”

“Nah.” Sehun waved him away. “I didn’t open the packet, you’re good.”

Minseok reached down to offer Jongdae a hand. “Come on, buddy, you can’t sit on the floor forever.”

“Sorry,” Jongdae mumbled as he took Minseok’s hand and climbed to his feet.

“You okay?” Sehun checked. “Your colour’s a little better.”

“I’m fine,” Jongdae said. That colour was probably just the mortified blush he could feel in his cheeks, but Sehun seemed reassured as he turned to lead the way out to the front counter.

“Do you have any Studex left, or do you need more?”

“Nah, I still got like half a bottle of that shit.”

“Alright, then that’s just fifty dollars today.”

Minseok did not seem to baulk at that price tag, but then, he had also paid over a million dollars for a house in cash. Jongdae tried to rein the envy back as he watched Minseok hand over his credit card.

“Okay,” Sehun said, tearing off the receipt and handing it to Minseok. “You know the drill. Take good care of it. Come back if you have any problems.”

“Will do.”

Minseok clicked a finger gun at Sehun, called out a goodbye towards the buzzing coming from Tao’s back room studio, and sauntered out into the dusty sunlight with Jongdae on his heels.

“Well.” He turned and surveyed Jongdae from head to toe. “You seem like you’re about to collapse again. I’m not taking you anywhere like that, let’s get you a cup of coffee.”

It occurred to Jongdae to ask where Minseok would be taking him in the first place, but before he could formulate words through the brain fuzz he was being dragged down the sidewalk and into one of the cafes that dotted the streets this side of the industrial edge.

Jongdae floated to a table while Minseok ordered their coffees. The bottle of water Tao had given him was still clutched in his hands, and he took a sip from it that somehow ended up spilling half down his chin.

“Wow,” Minseok whistled as he set two cups on the table and slid into the seat opposite Jongdae. “You look shellshocked. Are you scarred for life?”

“No,” Jongdae whispered. He couldn’t quite tear his eyes away from the window to meet Minseok’s gaze, and his blinking function seemed to have switched off.

“Oi.” Minseok snapped his fingers in front of Jongdae’s face. “Earth to Kim Jongdae. Snap out of it, dude, you’re going catatonic.”

Jongdae shook himself and dragged his brain away from the mesmerising sunlight outside to look at Minseok.

“Sorry. I just. Whew.” He closed his eyes and shook his head to try and clear it. “I don’t do well with blood.”

“You don’t say.” Minseok raised an eyebrow. “Remind me not to put too much hope in you if Xingy ever cuts his leg open again or something.”

Jongdae’s panic must have shown on his face, because Minseok pushed one of the cups at him with an urgent noise.

“Drink, dude, or you’re gonna black out again.”

Jongdae picked up the coffee and took a careful sip of the foam.

“Oh - _damn_ , that’s good.”

“This place does some pretty spectacular coffee,” Minseok agreed.

“No kidding.”

Jongdae melted into his coffee for a minute, eyes rolling back at the gorgeous smell of perfectly roasted beans.

“I did not expect this from the industrial edge,” he mumbled.

Minseok snorted. “What’s that supposed to mean? What have you got against the industrial edge, man? This place is the shit.”

Jongdae opened his eyes to see Minseok smirking at him.

“I dunno,” he shrugged. “This area always scared me as a kid. It seemed like the kind of place where everything’s dirty and strangers will kill you in broad daylight.”

Minseok laughed. “On the industrial edge? Dude, you’re more likely to get offered free weed.”

That was just as scary, thought Jongdae.

“I mean, the factories are pretty damn unfriendly,” Minseok added, “but along these streets? Nah. People are lovely here. Watch.”

He leaned back in his seat to call towards the counter.

“What’s the cake today, my love?”

The girl at the counter looked up, her smile sparkling bright and wide as she saw Minseok. “Cherry chocolate!” she replied. “Would you like a piece?”

“Yes please!” Minseok returned her smile with a crinkle of his nose and turned back to Jongdae. “See? Friendly as anything.”

“Minseok, that’s just-” Jongdae coughed a laugh into his half-empty cup, “that’s just you, you just have that effect on people.”

Minseok blinked up at him, mouth a tiny “o” of surprise. “Do I?”

“Yes,” Jongdae sighed, rubbing his temple with two fingers, “ _yes_ , how- have you seriously never noticed?”

Minseok shook his head. The waitress appeared with a slice of cake, and he beamed up at her with the force of a thousand suns.

“Thank you so much,” he said. “You’re a star.”

She giggled and scurried back to the counter to serve the next customer. Jongdae raised a pointed eyebrow at Minseok.

“Do you see what I mean?”

Minseok cocked his head, blinking, thinking-

“Oh,” he said. “… Huh.”

“There it is.” Jongdae cast a hand at him across the table. “The penny drops.”

“Does everyone react like that to me?”

“Not everyone,” Jongdae shook his head. “But most people.”

“Dang.” Minseok looked amazed. “I never noticed.”

Jongdae just stared at him for a moment, then shook his head and went back to his coffee.

“Incredible,” he muttered.

Minseok still seemed tickled at this new-found power. He giggled into a mouthful of cake, the fork wobbling between his teeth and streaking icing across his lip.

“Here,” he said, pushing the second fork towards Jongdae. “She gave us two. Go on.”

Sitting in the reflected sun from outside, sharing coffee and cake with Minseok, Jongdae felt himself coming more alive. It was slightly easier now to shake the image of Minseok’s pierced nipple out of his memory, to banish the blood and come back to the present.

“What are your plans for the rest of the day?” Minseok asked, as the last of the cake disappeared and the dregs of coffee cooled in their cups.

Jongdae shrugged. “Probably just gonna go home and study. Internship hunting is frustrating, I don’t know if I can handle any more of it today.”

Minseok pulled a sympathetic face. “My condolences, dude. You want a lift?”

“A lift?” Jongdae frowned. “I thought you were on your bike.”

“I’ve got a spare helmet.”

“Oh- no, no way.” Jongdae shook his head. “I’m not- there is no way-”

“Come on, you’re not gonna die. How else are you planning to get home?”

“I’ll take the bus.”

“Pfft.” Minseok dismissed that idea with a wave of his hand. “You’ll be waiting an hour for a bus out this way. I’ll drop you home.”

“Minseok, no, that’s over an hour’s drive.”

“I don’t mind.”

“Maybe not, but I do. I don’t want to be on your bike that long, I’ll be sick.”

Minseok rolled his eyes, but conceded with a sigh.

“Fine, I’ll drop you back to the bus depot in town. How’s that sound?”

Jongdae pursed his lips, then nodded. “Fine.”

“Awesome.” Minseok pushed his chair back from the table and stood up. “This is for the cake!” he called to the waitress, sliding a twenty onto the counter.

“Oh, I’ll just be with you in a second!” she smiled, wrangling the espresso machine into order, but Minseok waved his hand as he stepped back from the counter.

“The rest is for you.”

She glanced down at the money on the counter, eyes wide.

“No, no, I’ll give you your change-”

“Keep it!” Minseok nudged Jongdae in the arm and they hurried out of the cafe before the waitress could protest any further.

“You just gave her an extra fifteen dollars,” Jongdae said as they headed back up the street towards Minseok’s bike.

“Yep.”

Jongdae wondered what it was like to be able to throw money around like that. He tried to picture a future in which he could spend without counting every dollar and worrying over the cents.

“Okay, here we go.” Minseok took the spare helmet out of its compartment and handed it to Jongdae. “You’re not _ideally_ dressed, but you’ll do.”

Jongdae looked down at his shirt, then at Minseok’s thick jacket.

“Should I be wearing something like that?”

“Ideally, yes.” Minseok zipped the jacket up to his chin and pulled on his helmet, then motioned for Jongdae to lean forward so he could check his chin strap. “If we crash, you’re a little bit fucked. Other than that, you’re just gonna be really cold.”

“How likely is crashing?” Jongdae eyed the bike warily.

“I’ve been riding for about six years, and I’ve never had an accident. Other than that one time I tried to pull a u-turn and went too slowly and fell over. That was the most hilarious ‘crash’ ever.” He hauled the bike off its stand and swung a leg over. “Alright, hop on!”

Jongdae hesitated, then climbed on behind him. The bike felt even larger when he was sitting on top of it than it looked from the side.

“Please don’t crash,” he whispered as Minseok adjusted his gloves and turned the key in the ignition.

“What’s that?” Minseok turned his head to peer back at him through the edge of his visor.

“Nothing.”

“Alright.” Minseok shrugged and pressed the start button. The bike sprang to life with such a roar that Jongdae jumped, his heart slamming against his ribs.

Minseok reached back and grabbed Jongdae’s hands to pull them around his waist.

“Hold on tight!” he yelled over the rumble of the engine. “Lean where I lean, keep your feet on the footrests, and for god’s sake don’t shuffle around. If you want me to stop urgently, smack me in the thigh.”

Jongdae nodded into Minseok’s shoulder and clutched at his waist, bunching Minseok’s jacket into his fists.

“You ready?”

He nodded again, and closed his eyes in unrestrained terror as Minseok kicked the bike into gear and eased off the clutch.

“ _Oh Jesus-_ ”

Minseok was probably exercising an incredible amount of control, Jongdae thought, considering how much of an adrenaline junkie he was. It was sedate, really, how they roared away down the road, accelerating up to nudge at the speed limit as they flew through the industrial edge towards the residential border of town.

“How are you doing?” Minseok called back over his shoulder as they slowed and stopped for a traffic light.

“Okay,” Jongdae called back. “I haven’t peed my pants yet.”

Minseok laughed. “That’s good.” He revved the engine as the opposing light turned orange. “You ready to go faster?”

Jongdae followed Minseok’s pointing hand to see the speed sign up ahead, the higher limit indicating that they were entering the warehouse district.

“Oh god,” Jongdae muttered. “Hell. Okay.”

“What?”

“Okay!” Jongdae yelled, then took a deep breath and went one further. “F- fuck it! Let’s go faster!”

Minseok laughed. “ _There’s_ the badass boy I like to see!”

The light changed, and Minseok gunned it. Jongdae let out a quiet scream of excitement as the engine roared beneath him, clinging to Minseok’s waist and grinning into the wind whipping through the gap beneath his visor.

Speeding through the warehouse district, Jongdae began to feel the chill that Minseok had warned him about. The breeze had been refreshing at first after the heavy sun, but now he was starting to feel cold in his shirt sleeves.

It was a pity, because as they pulled into the parking lot of the bus depot and Minseok cut the engine Jongdae thought that if not for the cold he could easily have taken Minseok up on the offer to drive him all the way home.

Or not, he decided, as he stumbled off the bike onto legs that seemed to have forgotten how to be legs.

“You alright there?” Minseok grinned, hauling the bike back onto its stand and taking Jongdae’s helmet back from him to stow it away in its compartment.

“Yep. Give me a minute.”

“This has been a wild day for you,” Minseok chuckled. “Don’t worry, I’m done torturing you. Go home and study.”

“Thank you,” Jongdae muttered into his own armpit, hands braced on his knees to try and claw back some stability. “Thanks for the lift. I… can’t say I’ll be repeating the experience any time soon, but it was fun.”

Minseok laughed and held out an arm to pull him into a hug. “You’re very welcome. Enjoy your boring bus ride.”

“I will. I really, really will.”

Minseok just laughed again and jumped back on the bike. He kicked it to life, and with a last wave he was away, slowing to a crawl to check the intersection for traffic before tearing away down the street in the direction of the highway.

_\--YX--_

“Excuse me?”

Yixing turned around, coffee in hand. “Yeah!”

A kid stood at the counter, shifting from foot to foot. Yixing didn’t think he’d seen him around the rink before, but he had one of those looks that quickly grew familiar, with big doe eyes and a heart-shaped face.

“How can I help?”

The kid pointed at the skates in the cubbies that lined the side wall of the office. “Are those for hire?”

“Yeah, absolutely.” Yixing put down his mug. “What size are you?”

“Uh- oh gosh.” The kid lifted one foot and proceeded to hop on the spot as he tried to yank his shoe off.

“You ever skated before?” Yixing asked, as the shoe finally came loose.

“No.” The kid squinted at the tag for a second, but didn’t seem to come up with a number, so Yixing held out his hand for the shoe.

“Do you know anything about skating?” Yixing pulled skates off the shelf and compared them against the kid’s shoe to check the size.

“No.”

Yixing found a pair of size eights that looked like a good match, and handed them over the counter to the kid.

“There you go, try those.”

The kid slipped his foot into the first skate and leaned down to buckle it closed around his ankle.

“ _Xingy!_ ”

Yixing jumped as Minseok slammed into the counter.

“Jesus Christ,” he grabbed his chest to try and force his heart back into it. “Why do you _do_ that?”

“I got something to show you,” Minseok said.

“Sure. I’m a little busy right at the minute.”

“Take your time.” Minseok looked at the kid as he straightened up from buckling his skate on. “What’s up, dude, how ya doing?”

The kid gave him a startled smile and a shy little nod of greeting. Wow, Yixing thought, he really _didn’t_ know anything about skating. Most of the kids at the rink would lose their shit if Minseok gave them so much as a glance. As it was, he tended to whirl in and out so quickly that barely anyone noticed him, which Yixing thought was probably for the better. Byun Baekhyun would shit his pants if he knew he was breathing the same air as Minseok.

“How’s that?” Yixing asked the kid.

“It’s good.”

“Not too big?”

He shook his head. “Nah, feels good.”

“I’m just gonna be in the back,” Minseok said, darting through the office and into the storage room.

“Okay, cool. Pass me your other shoe, I’ll put them on the shelf.”

The kid nodded and handed his other shoe over, then pulled his wallet out of his pocket.

“How much to rent them for two hours?”

Yixing waved him away. “Free. Just bring em back when you’re done and I’ll give you your shoes back. If they don’t feel right come back and swap em for another pair - I know there’s one pair that has a bearing stuck, but I keep losing track of which ones they are. Oh, and here’s some pads. Knees, elbows, wrists.”

Another voice called out from the rink. “Ya, Yixing!”

Yixing rolled his eyes. “What?”

Baekhyun vaulted the railing and skated up next to the new kid. “Two sodas.”

“Say please. What the hell happened to your manners?”

“Please,” Baekhyun added, with a winning smile.

Kris and Chanyeol arrived behind him, apparently in the middle of an arm wrestle.

“Just a warning,” Yixing said to the new kid as he pulled two cans out of the fridge, “if you’re just learning to skate, you might want to stay out of these guys’ way. Gangly and Ganglier will run you over and then Mouthy will laugh about it.”

The new kid looked at the three of them warily, then blinked in surprise.

“Kris Wu!”

“Huh?” Kris turned around, one arm still around Chanyeol’s neck in an attempt at a headlock.

“You’re Kris Wu, you went to my school! You were the year above me.”

Kris narrowed his eyes as if trying to place the kid, then shrugged and shook his head.

“Don’t remember you. Sorry.”

“I’m- my name’s Luhan. You were on the basketball team!”

“Oh, are you that kid who used to come watch our practises?” Kris snorted.

“Yeah, yeah, that was me!” Luhan seemed delighted that Kris had remembered, and unbothered by the fact that the memory was evidently not a particularly fond one.

Kris considered him for a second, then gave another little shrug and held out his hand.

“Good to meet you. Or. See you again. I guess. Whatever. This is Chanyeol,” he pointed at Chanyeol, still in a headlock, “and this loud asshole is Baby Baekkie. He’s your age.”

“Oh, cool.” Luhan turned to Baekhyun. “What school are you at?”

Baekhyun snorted. “I don’t fuck with school.”

“ _Woah_.” Luhan’s eyes bugged out. “Really?”

Baekhyun gazed off into the middle distance. “I got tired of it. Decided I was done.”

“ _Wow_ ,” Luhan whispered.

“Okay, you lot.” Yixing chivvied them away from the counter. “Get going, I’ve got other people to serve.”

“Thanks for the sodas!” Baekhyun called, raising his can to Yixing as he skated backwards behind Kris and Chanyeol towards the benches. “Nice to meet you, Lu!”

“Actually, it’s Luh-” Luhan’s voice whispered off into silence as the three of them disappeared into the crowd of skaters milling around the seating area.

“You good, kiddo?”

“Hm?” he looked at Yixing, eyes wide and round. “Oh. Yeah. I’m gonna-” he took a wobbly step on his skates and just about fell over.

“Careful.” Yixing reached out a useless hand in his direction, as if he could hold him upright from three feet away. “Use the barrier to hold onto once you’re in the rink,” he suggested. “Best way to find your balance.”

“Cool. Thanks.” Luhan looked up at him again, smiling now. “What’s your name again?”

“Yixing.”

“Right, that’s right. Thanks, Yixing.”

“No problem. Go have fun.”

Luhan nodded and wobbled away towards the gate into the rink. Yixing watched him for a second, then turned around as the storeroom door squeaked open.

“Are the kids behaving?”

“As much as they ever do.” Yixing jerked his head at the rink, where the Unholy Trinity had commandeered the half-pipe and were terrorising each other with near misses as they passed by between flips. “How is it that my three most senior and responsible skaters are simultaneously my worst problem children?”

“Look at you,” Minseok laughed. “You’ve turned into such a mom, Xingy. You’re getting all clucky over your unruly brood of chicks.”

Yixing turned to look at the rink. Was he really going mother hen over these kids?

“Well,” he shrugged, “someone’s gotta look after ’em.”

“Can’t think of anyone better suited to the job,” Minseok said.

Yixing snorted and shook his head.

“You said you had something to show me?”

“Hell yeah I do!” Minseok’s smile stretched from ear to ear, all teeth and pink gums. “Come on.”

He grabbed Yixing’s wrist and dragged him out of the office and towards the front door.

“Are we going outside?” Yixing craned his neck back towards the counter. “I should-”

“The kids’ll be fine without you for five minutes,” Minseok assured him. “Your problem children will look after them.”

Yixing resisted another moment, then followed Minseok out of the warehouse with a sigh.

Even with the giant roller doors open to the sun it was still a blinding shock to step outside into the full force of it, and Yixing blinked rapidly, shading his eyes with a hand as Minseok led him around the side of the building to where his bike was parked.

“Look at this.”

“Look at wh- _woah_.”

Minseok had one hand on the dashboard of his bike, which was bigger than it had been last time Yixing had ridden pillion. A new panel had been added, nestled up under the windscreen with buttons and lights, as well as a piece next to the grip on one handlebar.

“What the hell-”

“Just got it installed this morning,” Minseok grinned. “Watch.”

He turned the key in the ignition and kicked the bike into life with a roar, then picked up one of the two brand new helmets sitting on the seat and handed it to Yixing as the lights on the dashboard blinked and lit up one by one.

“What-”

“Put it on,” Minseok said, picking up the other and jamming it onto his head.

“Uh- okay?” Yixing slid the helmet on, muffling the rumble of the engine.

_“Hello, Yixing.”_

“WOAH!”

Minseok’s voice was loud and bright in his ears, his mischievous giggle clearly audible as he eyed Yixing’s reaction.

“What the _hell-_ ”

_“Bluetooth. Watch.”_

Minseok pulled his phone out of his pocket and unlocked it, and a second later Yixing jumped as music began playing next to his ear.

_“Cool, huh?”_ Minseok’s voice cut over the song.

“Yeah, what- this is the coolest shit, where did you even get this?”

_“You’d be amazed the kind of people you meet at competitions. There’s some seriously cool developers in the BMX scene.”_

“Wow.” Yixing shook his head. “I knew BMXers were weird, but I didn’t know they could be _cool_ weird.”

_“Right?”_ Minseok laughed. _“And watch this.”_

He pressed one of the buttons next to the handlebar grip, and the music got quieter. Another, and Minseok’s voice got louder.

_“Total control.”_ A third button, and the music paused. The same button a second time, and it started again. _“Try calling me.”_

Yixing pulled his phone out of his pocket and redialled his most recent call. Suddenly the music in his ear went quiet and a ringing tone played instead. Minseok hit the same play/pause button, and the music cut to open air.

_“Hello?”_

Yixing lifted the phone under his helmet.

“Hi Minseok-”

_“Hi Minseok-”_

“Holy shit, that’s cool!”

_“Holy shit, that’s cool!”_

Minseok laughed and pressed the button again, and the call ended, the music resuming in its place. Minseok paused the music, then turned the bike off.

“Fuckin’ awesome, right?” he said as he pulled his helmet off.

“That is the coolest shit I’ve ever seen,” Yixing confirmed. He handed the helmet back to Minseok, who stowed it away in its compartment. “So it’s all interconnected?”

“Yeah, basically. The bike acts as a relay,” Minseok said. He pointed to the pairs of buttons and lights on the dashboard. “Helmet one, helmet two, phone. Music and phone calls go to both helmets, and the helmets can talk to each other.”

“That is _so cool_.”

“I know, right?” Minseok grinned, giddy and excited. “I’m so pumped. It’s gonna make that long ride out to Jongdae’s place so much more fun, for one thing.”

“Oh, yeah, true. It’s not gonna be distracting, though, right?”

“Nah.” Minseok shook his head. “It’s just like a car stereo. I can still hear car horns and stuff, it’s all good.”

“Cool, cool. Man. _Nice_.” Yixing peered at the new dashboard panel. “They installed it really nicely, too!”

“Yeah, I thought it’d be ugly as fuck, but they made it work. I’m really pleased.” He held out his hand to Yixing. “Anyway, dude. I’ll let you get back to your ducklings.”

Yixing took the hug with a slap to Minseok’s back. “I thought they were chicks?”

“Ah, whatever.” Minseok waved a hand. “They’re all birdies.”

Yixing laughed. “Get outta here.”

Minseok grinned and slid the helmet back onto his head. “See you later, Xingy Dingy.”

“See ya.” Yixing stood back and watched as Minseok turned the bike on again. He pressed the play button, paused, then nodded with satisfaction and winked at Yixing as he kicked the bike into gear. A moment later he was gone, peeling out of the parking lot in a cloud of gravel dust.

Yixing watched him go until he was around the corner and out of sight, the howl of his engine swallowed in the industrial traffic. Then he pulled his phone out and hit redial.

Pause. Ring. Ring. R-

_“Hello, Kim Minseok speaking.”_

“This really is the coolest shit.”

Minseok laughed.

_“It really is. I thought you were going back to your brood, mama hen?”_

“I’m going, I’m going.” He paused. “I’ll see you later, Minnie.”

_“Yeah you will.”_

The phone went dead in his hand, and Yixing smiled to himself as he slid it back into his pocket and headed back inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's how they _really_ first met.


End file.
